January 13th: Cadbury Cake Bars Jaffa / Vanilla

Just when I thought it was safe to take my hands off the keyboard and stop writing about cake bar products Cadbury just had to bring out two unannounced limited edition variants didn't they!? Gracing supermarket shelves across the country these 'Jaffa' and 'Vanilla' cake bars are being promoted to hell by Cadbury - I managed to pick these up on a £1 a pack, BOGOF deal ... at 10p a cake bar they might as well be giving them away.

As with the rest of the range these multi packs came in the usual packs of five. As I sometimes do I nabbed a few from each of the packs for myself before leaving the rest of my work office to help themselves to what was left - the only thing to report here was that uptake on the Jaffa flavoured bars was a lot quicker!

In regards to presentation my thoughts were pretty so-so! Both variants looked like I expected with the Jaffa having a orange jelly filling, whilst the vanilla had a fluffy looking white centre. Below are my quick thoughts on each. To save time blabbing on about the quality of the golden sponge in each I think you will be unsurprised to hear that it was of a pretty average quality across both variants, so let me just focus on the fillings!


Cadbury Cake Bar Jaffa:

Kcal 120 Fat 4.9g Fat(sats) 2.8g Carbs 18.4g (per bar)

'Golden sponge with a jaffa flavoured topping' ... sound familiar!? ... 'covered in milk chocolate' ... ok maybe not quite a McVitie's Jaffa Cake bar rip off then!

It may not be a complete like-for-like comparison but I can't help benchmarking this Cadbury Jaffa to it's McVitie's opposite. Truth be told it simply work as well as the McVitie's as the outer milk chocolate was just a little too sweet when combined with the sharp sugary flavours of the orange jelly centre. I am not saying I am a great admirer of the standard of the dark chocolate the lines the McVitie's bar but I have to say it's unsweetened nature works better than the sugary Cadbury milk chocolate did in this bar.

7.0 out of 10

Cadbury Cake Bars Vanilla:

Kcal 155 Fat 8.7g Fat(sats) 4.7g Carbs 17.7g (per bar)

'Golden sponge topped with a vanilla flavour creme, covered with milk chocolate' ... hmm the more I think about this the more I am starting to believe Cadbury released both of these to piss off McVitie's .... MilkyWay Cake Bars anyone!?

These were pretty bad to be honest! They weren't near being inedible but they were probably one of the worst variants of cake bars I have reviewed over the last six months. The outer chocolate was standard Cadbury quality with it's sugary, milky taste but things went awfully down hill from there. The centre had a pretty nasty sweet taste that had an undertone of artificial sweetener bitterness. It had a hint of vanilla to it but I was more distracted by the strange bittersweet concoction of salt, sugar that dominated my tastebuds. It was odd to say the least and it in no way left me wanting to experience it again.

6.1 out of 10

Overall so what have we learnt here!? Well having thought it through it looks to me like Cadbury wanted to throw their weight around by bringing out two flavours of cake bars that are pretty much direct competition for two of McVitie's products ...*slow clap* for Cadbury!! Personally I thought both of these variants were below the standard of others from Cadbury's Cake Bar range such as the Mint, Original and Caramel flavour bars and it was pretty obvious how quickly these had been rushed to market with very little attention paid to the issue of quality. Now I don't even like Bournville dark chocolate ... but here is an idea for you ... Cadbury Cake Bars Jaffa but with Bournville dark chocolate! Any genius could of thought of that! Not only is dark chocolate and orange a better combination but it creates 'new news' for the Bournville brand of Cadbury and stops Cadbury looking so pathetic ripping off their competition so indiscreetly!! Readers thoughts are most welcome ...