WE’RE all looking to save money this Christmas – but can you get classic festive treats like fruit cake for a bargain price?
The Sun has tested Britain’s favourite seasonal specialities to find out which supermarket own-brand goods are the best quality.
This time we’re looking at the classic iced Christmas cake, to see which supermarket version is the best value for money.
We tested round, ice-topped Christmas cakes from Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Aldi and Lidl.
For each one, we gave it a score out of ten for taste and a score out of ten for value, based on the price per 100g and the cake’s the fruit and sugar content.
Here’s how the Christmas cakes scored out of 20 overall:
This Tesco cake was the sweetest we tried, containing 62.5% sugar.
But it was also dark with fruit and contained plenty of sultanas and cherries.
The cake was a little stodgy in texture but it tasted fruity and was topped with a tasty almond marzipan and crisp icing.
The decoration was pretty so it would look like on your festive table – and at 72p per 100g, this was middle of the range in price.
Asda’s cake was oily on the bottom and had a mushy texture – which was unpleasant.
Unusually, it had a strong marzipan taste in the cake mix itself, as well as in the topping. This made it very sweet.
We weren’t impressed with the decoration on the cake, as the Christmas tree shape icing pattern was difficult to see.
Although it cost the same as the Tesco version, at 72 per 100g, it contained less fruit so wasn’t as good value.
This Morrisons cake was the most expensive we tried, at 81p per 100g, but it was the best tasting.
The cake was light in texture but still packed with tasty fruit, as it contained 24% sultanas and 5% cherries.
It also had the lowest sugar content of all we tested, at 44.6%.
It was topped with a sweet marzipan and icing, had an attractive holly and berries icing decoration and was presented on a silver board which made it easy to serve.
We felt its high fruit content and appearance made it value for money.
The Sainsbury’s version was similar to Morrisons’ because it had a lighter cake texture and a good mix of different fruits.
But we felt it tasted a little less fruit and the icing on top was surprisingly tough.
It was presented on a silver board, had a nice holly and berries decoration and cost 75p per 100g – the second most expensive cake we tried.
Aldi’s cake was the joint-cheapest we tried, at just 61p per 100g – but it showed.
The cake had a high sultana and raisin content, without much other interesting fruit.
It showed in the taste, which was unpleasantly bitter. But this was balanced out a little by a very sweet marzipan and icing topping.
The cake was also presented on a silver board and had a holly and berries decoration.
The Lidl cake was very similar to Aldi’s version but had a slightly lighter, more fruity taste.
There were more raisins and less sultanas in Aldi’s cake and the icing wasn’t too overwhelmingly sweet.
The cake was also presented on a silver board, with a holly and berries decoration.
For 61p per 100g, we felt it just beat Aldi as the best budget cake.
