The Great Jaffa Cake Cake-off

Introduction

While I was in the
supermarket the other day, I noticed that Mcvities, that great purveyor of the
English biscuit, have introduced several new flavours of the renowned Jaffa
Cake. In addition to the original orange, there is now Lemon and Lime, and
Blackcurrant. I resolved to test these new flavours, and also to determine
whether there was any difference between the supermarket own-brand Jaffa Cakes,
and Mcvities originals.

Method

First, Jaffa Cakes
were purchased from a Sainsbury's supermarket I went past on the way home.
Flavours purchased were: Sainsbury's basics Jaffa Cakes (orange flavour,
obviously), Mcvities orange, lemon and lime, and ribenaberry*. These were then
displayed, and test subjects (everyone at my work) were invited to sample them
and were asked:

1. Compared to the
smashing orangey bit, how smashing is the lemon and limey bit? Or the
ribenaberry bit?

2. What's the
difference between the Sainsbury's value and the original orange
ones?

Apparatus

Jaffa Cakes. (NB
this test did not include the rumoured milk chocolate Jaffa Cake, as these are
an offence against nature).

Plates.

Cups of tea (or
coffee).

Results

Answers to the above
questions varied. On the question of smashingness, reaction to the two new
flavours was muted. Pretty much everyone preferred the original (which
incidentally has an extra calorie per cake - make of that what you will). The
lemon and lime scored well, but the blackcurrant was not considered a success.
However, what was interesting was that the first box to be finished was the
blackcurrant flavour. Hmmm...

On the question of
the difference between the Sainsbury's value and the Mcvities original, almost
everyone agreed that the inside of the cake was a different colour. Most people
could not detect a difference in overall taste, although a few claimed to prefer
the original, and one person preferred the Sainsbury's. This may have been out
of confusion, however, as some joker mixed up the packs early on in the
experiment (he knows who he is, and everybody else does, too, don't they,
Keith). The Sainsbury's 'basics' cakes were noted
to have marginally less smashing orangey bit (SOB), but the smashingness of the
orangey bit was considered comparable to the Mcvities SOB. When the
components were nibbled off individually, the Mcvities cake was considered
superior, while the SOB in each cake was considered identical, as was the
chocolate.

Discussion

I'm really liking
the BBC's theme tune for their Commonwealth Games coverage. It's imbecilically
simple, but I like it. It gets me all excited whenever I hear it (probably
shouldn't tell you that).

Conclusion

Considering that
Sainsbury's basics Jaffa Cakes are half the price, you certainly get more
smashingness to the pound. However, the authors of this paper suggest that there
is a Law of Diminishing Marginal Smashiness, since prolonged exposure to
Sainsbury's jaffa cakes did appear to increase the subject's appreciation for
the Mcvities ones.

Don't bother with
the blackcurrant ones, either. I ate a whole one without ever realizing what
flavour it was.

Oh my God! I went to
the nicecupofteaandasitdown.com website looking for a diagram of a Jaffa Cake,
and what do I find? They've just done their own review! Love those Bahlsen
Messino ones, by the way. Didn't have 'em in Sainsburys, but they are very
scrummy.

*For those unaware
of the Ribenaberry's taxonomy, in the Linnaean system you will find it as
follows: Kingdom Fantastico, Phylum Anthropomorphica, Order Cutesi, Family
Advertisa, Genus Ribena, Species Ribenaberry. There may be subspecies. I'm
pretty sure that's it, but my Linnaean isn't really very good. I don't even know
where Linnaea is.