The Tiger Who Came To Tea….and ate all the Jaffa cakes

Do you know the children’s book The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr? One morning there is a knock at the door and Sophie and her Mummy are surprised to find an enormous tiger who asks very politely if he can come in for tea as he is very hungry. He does and then proceeds to eat up all the food, drink all the tea (straight from the spout of the teapot) and then drink up all the water from the tap. He drinks so much there isn’t enough water left for Sophie to have her bath. After he has eaten them out of house and home he leaves. The father comes home from work, hears the tale and sees that there is no food in the house and suggests they go out to a café. Sophie and her Mummy go shopping to replenish all the food in the house and buy a big box of tiger food but the mysterious tiger is never seen again.

 

 

 

 

Going with my theme of feeding animals from famous children’s books some cake and using up the marmalade (the last cake was a marmalade tea loaf for Paddington) I thought I would have a go at a tiger-y looking cake (orange and brown) and fulfil my desire for a Jaffa cake flavour--chocolate and orange. 

For the Tiger Who Came To Tea Cake, I made a regular cake and stirred in 4 TB marmalade and frosted it with a chocolate icing. I used to always just mix the sugar with the dry ingredients and then add the liquid and oil but I went with the technique of creaming the oil with the sugar and then adding the liquid to it and it really made in a difference in my humble opinion. The cake was sooo light and fluffy. It rose beautifully and did not sink (like sometimes happens with spelt flour due to the lower gluten content) and was melt in your mouth tender. The chocolate frosting was a new thing I had never tried before--it is more like a layer of whippy chocolate pudding on top instead of getting hard like icing does. It is made with pureed dates and is delicious.

The Tiger Who Came To Tea Cake

 

Make your frosting first as it needs to chill for a minimum of three hours in the fridge to firm up. Adapted from: www.forksoverknives.com/recipes/fudgy-chocolate-frosting/

 

Put into your blender:

1 cup boiling water

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Blend well being careful about the steam. Then add:

1 ½ cups pitted dates (I used cheap, rather dry dates I got from Poundland and it worked fine)

Pinch salt

½ tsp vanilla

Then blend like heck until a thick glossy smooth paste forms. YUM! Then scrape into a container and let chill in the fridge for at least three hours. It will never get as firm as frosting made with sugar but this tastes *amazing*--thick and fudgy like a pudding. In fact you could eat it as a pudding! Or spread it on crackers for a dessert treat (which we will as I didn’t use it all on the cake. Leftover frosting=yum!) 

 

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 180C/ 350F

Grease an 8x8 square pan

 

Sift together:

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour (I used wholemeal spelt)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

 

In another bowl cream together

½ cup Demerara sugar

¼ cup oil 

When thoroughly mixed add:

¾ cup orange juice

4 TB marmalade

1 tsp vanilla

Shake cinnamon

Mix liquid ingredients well and then slowly add in dry ingredients until just mixed (don’t over mix)

 

Pour into greased pan and lightly tap pan to eliminate air bubbles. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

 

Let cool completely and then frost with the chocolate frosting. It’s like pudding on top of cake!

 

Can I just say….this was…..amazing. The marmalade tasted sooooo good inside the cake. I prefer it to the Paddington cake with marmalade on top. Spiderman was partial to the dense texture of the Paddy cake as all the glaze had dripped through the cake but I liked the light, fluffiness of the Tiger cake--plus it has chocolate frosting! What’s not to love?

 

Luckily we still have some marmalade left so we can both have more cake. Mmmm….cake. 

 

Try this and you will not be disappointed.

 And if a tiger should happen to come to tea, you will be ready