YORKTEST - Newsletter

You are here: Home > Newsletter > September Newsletter > Wheat Free Jaffa Cakes  

Yes, it’s that time of the month again when we test the taste buds of the YorkTest staff to find out for you which ‘free from’ products are up to the task.  The last thing you want, when excluding foods from your diet, is to be so restricted that you cannot enjoy a treat or two.  It is the enjoyment of a treat that allows us to stick with our food plans, and there is possibly no harder food to exclude than Wheat and Gluten.  Being as they are, after all, the main constituents of most cakes. 

 

So this month, we look at one of the larger Free-From ranges on the market, Bakers Delight, and put their Gluten and Wheat free alternatives to Jaffa Cakes to the test against the mighty McVities Jaffa Cakes.  Bakers Delight is a brand produced by Baker Bennett Ltd, specialist distributors of baking products, speciality cakes and gluten free products and suppliers to many major wholesalers and health food stores.  So, while they are a big name in the free-from world, how will this titanic struggle go down with the crack team of taste experts that make up the YorkTest staff?

 

Well, at first glance it would appear that David has no chance against Goliath, with nine out of twelve people saying they prefer the original McVities Jaffas.  However, such statistics rarely tell the whole story.  Three people did indeed choose the Wheat free alternative, but almost everyone noted that whilst it wasn’t quite as nice as the more established brand, it was still very nice.  Some people took issue with the bread base, remarking that it was ‘a bit dry’ and ‘somewhat rubbery.’  However, 7 people overall said they preferred the ‘jaffa’ inside the wheat free alternative, with many people commenting that it had a more realistically ‘orangey’ taste to it.

 

Overall, the consensus was that while the original Jaffa Cakes were a clear winner, if you do have to exclude wheat out of your diet, you can do a lot worse than the wheat free alternative, which is almost as good as the real thing.  So if you are cutting gluten or wheat out of your diet, Bakers Delight Gluten Free Jaffa Cakes are currently available from Waitrose, Holland & Barratt, Co-op and Morrisons stores, or you can visit their website at www.bakers-delight.co.uk.