Gluten-free Jaffa Cakes with Lemon

Jaffa cakes I have known in Ireland. The first year I came to live here I discovered them one day on the shelf of my favorite store. And they ended up in my shopping trolley/cart. Back in the car I opened them immediately and after the first bite I knew: I have a new favorite cookie. They soon became my absolute comfort food.

Then years later I found out that I was highly gluten intolerant. No Jaffa cakes anymore. And I missed them like I (still) miss pizza. BUT: the good news is that all can have a healthier version. And that’s why I finally made some paleo friendly Jaffa cakes.

I found the recipe on Nadia’s Healthy Kitchen. But like always I made my own version. Mine has half of the sweetener, I used hazelnut meal instead of the almond flour. With ghee, I give the cookie base a richer flavor and because of the hazelnut meal I used hazelnut milk.

I did a second version with a sponge cake base. I like both versions, though they are very different. The sponge cake is more like the original Jaffa cakes with a light cookie base.

I like oranges very much in winter and the orange season is soon beginning, but this time I wanted to try with lemon. So I made a lemon marmalade, also with only half of the sweetener (I used raw honey) of what her recipe recalls. The chocolate chips for coating I mixed with just enough coconut oil to make the chocolate a little more fluid, this way it is easier to cover the little cookies or cakes.

I gave some to a friend to try and he liked them very much, even the sweetness, and he is not paleo at all.

BTW: Jaffa cakes were invented by McVitie and Price (British snack food brand) in 1927. A sponge cake with a layer of orange flavored jam and the upper part coated with chocolate. The name Jaffa refers to the Jaffa oranges. As ‘special edition’ there are Jaffa cakes with lemon or lime, strawberry or blackcurrant jam. I tried the blackcurrant and lime/lemon ones and liked them, too. Strawberry I am sure I would not like that much as the fruit for me should be more ‘bitter’. That makes it so good with the chocolate.

GF/DF Jaffa Cakes
Jaffa Cakes
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
18 cookies 20 minutes
Cook Time
10 minutes
Servings Prep Time
18 cookies 20 minutes
Cook Time
10 minutes
GF/DF Jaffa Cakes
Jaffa Cakes
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
18 cookies 20 minutes
Cook Time
10 minutes
Servings Prep Time
18 cookies 20 minutes
Cook Time
10 minutes
Ingredients
For the marmalade:
For the coating:
For the sponge cake version:
Servings: cookies
Instructions
  1. Start with the marmalade. Put all ingredients in a sauce pan and stir well. Now heat the liquid until it starts to cook. Switch of the heat and let the marmalade cool to become jelly.
  2. Now preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
  3. For the cookie base: In a bowl add all the 4 dry ingredients and mix them. Now add all the wet ingredients one after the other and stir well. The batter should be creamy.
  4. For the sponge cake: Divide the eggs and with the pinch of salt whip the egg whites until they are stiff. Mix in another bowl the yolks with the water, honey and flour and fold the batter into the egg whites.
  5. For both kinds of batter proceed as follows: Grease a muffin tin and fill in every muffin form one tablespoon of batter, just half a centimeter/0.2 inch high.
  6. Bake the Jaffa cookies base for 10 minutes. Take them out of the oven and out of the muffin tin and let them cool out well.
  7. With a teaspoon put a layer of the lemon marmalade on all the cookie bases. In a small sauce pan and at bain-marie melt the chocolate with the coconut oil. With the help of a teaspoon scoop some chocolate on every Jaffa cake and let the chocolate shell get hard in the fridge.
  8. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes

Try the marmalade with Jaffa oranges (or others). Be careful with the sweetener, oranges naturally are sweet. I would omit any additional sweetness.

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