Jaffa Cakes

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Jaffa Cakes are a popular type of snack sold under a number of different brands, the market leader being McVitie's (United Biscuits). In the United Kingdom, Jaffa Cakes are classed as cakes for the purposes of taxation, but due to their size and high number per packaging, shops generally stock them within the biscuit section. The name is derived from Jaffa oranges.

McVitie's produce Jaffa Cakes in two different sizes (regular and mini) and in a number of different packaging formats (box, tube, pod and flow wrap).

Contents 1 Specifications 2 Spin-offs 3 Marketing 4 Cake or biscuit? 5 Miscellaneous 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Specifications

Regular-sized Jaffa Cakes are circular, approximately 54 mm (2⅛ inches) in diameter, and 7 mm (¼ inch) in height. They comprise three layers:

• A sponge base.
• A layer of orange jam of narrower diameter than the base, approximately 38 mm (1½ inch) in diameter.
• A layer of chocolate covering the jam and the margin of the sponge.

[edit] Spin-offs

There are several spin-off products which use the McVitie's Jaffa Cake brand:

• Jaffa Cakebars, a rectangular bar composed of two layers of softer sponge, with orange jam between, and surrounded by chocolate.
• Jaffa Corners, a variant of the Müller Corner yogurt brand.
• Jaffa Mini Roll, a swiss roll composed of the same ingredients as the Jaffa Cakebars.
• Jaffa Cake Muffins, a muffin with orange jam in the middle and chocolate on top.
• In 2005, McVitie's launched Jaffa Cake Zingy Blackcurrant, a regularly composed cake with a blackcurrant flavoured centre. In 2006, it launched a Jaffa Cake Lemon and Lime variant.

[edit] Marketing

In the marketing of McVitie's Jaffa Cakes, the orange jam is referred to as "the smashing orangey bit". All the packaging uses a distinctive orange font on a blue background. For a couple of years, until late 2004, the words "Jaffa Cakes" were replaced on the box with slogans humorously designed to look as if the owner was trying to protect their cakes, e.g. "THEY'RE ALL GONE".

[edit] Cake or biscuit?

Under UK law, no VAT is charged on biscuits and cakes — they are "zero rated". Chocolate covered biscuits, however, are classed as luxury items and are subject to VAT at 17.5%. McVitie's classed its Jaffa Cakes as cakes, but in 1991, this was challenged by HM Customs and Excise in court.^[1] This may have been because Jaffa Cakes are about the same size and shape as some types of biscuit. The question which had to be answered was what criteria should be used to class something as a cake or biscuit. McVitie's defended the classification of Jaffa Cakes as a cake by producing a giant Jaffa Cake to illustrate that their Jaffa Cakes were simply mini cakes.

They also argued that the distinction between cakes and biscuits is simply that cakes go hard when stale, whereas biscuits go soft. It was demonstrated that Jaffa Cakes become hard when stale and McVitie's won the case.^[2]

The issue was revisited in an article entitled 'Are Jaffa Cakes really biscuits?' published in the Journal of Unlikely Science (Volume 1, issue 7, 2005). ^[3] The article attempted to classify biscuits via a scientific analysis of various features (size, shape, filling etc.) and determined that the Jaffa Cake should be regarded as a biscuit, or 'pseudobiscuit'.

[edit] Miscellaneous

Scottish actor Ian Richardson stated in a 2006 interview that his father was the inventor of the Jaffa Cake.^{[citation needed]}

McVitie's signed a sponsorship deal with Manchester United in 2000, making Jaffa Cakes one of the teams's eleven 'platinum' sponsors. Sven-Göran Eriksson announced that Jaffa Cakes would join the England squad in Japan for the 2002 FIFA World Cup as part of their training diet. The publicity culminated with a story of a McVitie's Jaffa Cake being found bearing the face of David Beckham, the team captain.

Taking inspiration from the Pimp That Snack website, a huge (55cm in diameter) Jaffa Cake was made by Giles Coren on the UK TV programme The F Word.

In the Beatles Anthology book, John Lennon was said by bandmate Paul McCartney to have been fond of jaffa cakes, and overindulged in them when the Beatles first achieved wealth and fame.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

1. ^ Official Jaffa Cakes page from United Biscuits. URL last accessed February 16, 2006.
2. ^ Lightfoot, Ch.: Jaffa Cakes, June 29, 2003. URL last accessed February 16, 2006.
3. ^ Online article Biscuit classification. URL last accessed May 23, 2006.

[edit] External links

• Official website