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A Jaffa Cake carefully cut in half
Jaffa Cakes are a popular type of cake sold under a number of different brands, the market leader being McVitie\'s (United Biscuits); the name is derived from Jaffa oranges.
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Regular-sized Jaffa Cakes are circular, approximately 54 mm (2⅛ inches) in diameter, and 7 mm (¼ inch) in depth. They comprise three layers; a sponge base, a layer of orange jelly of narrower diameter than the base (approximately 38 mm), and a layer of chocolate covering the jelly and the margin of the sponge.
McVitie\'s signed a sponsorship deal with Manchester United F.C. in 2000, making Jaffa Cakes one of the team\'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.Sven\'s cake expectations. BBC News (2002-05-02).
In the United States, the LU brand makes a similar product called Pim\'s OrangeLU Biscuits\' list of varieties.
There have been claims in the media that the orange centres in Jaffa Cakes are made from apricot and flavoured with tangerine oil. This urban legend may have originated in a 2002 article in The Daily Telegraphhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/09/11/do1105.xml. The myth gained status when it was published as fact in QI: The Book of General Ignorance, a 2006 book based on the BBC television series QI. The book\'s claim was repeated in a 2006 article in The PeopleQI News.
In reality Jaffa Cakes contain no apricot, or tangerine, and are made with orange juice, according to the list of ingredients on packs of Jaffa Cakes.
Under UK law, no VAT is charged on biscuits and cakes — they are "zero rated". Chocolate covered biscuits, however, are subject to VAT at 17.5%. McVities classed its Jaffa Cakes as cakes, but in 1991, this was challenged by Her Majesty\'s Customs and Excise and the case ended up before the courts.Official Jaffa Cakes page from United Biscuits. URL last accessed February 16 2006. This may have been because Jaffa Cakes are about the same size and shape as some types of biscuit. A question that the court asked itself was "what criteria should be used to class something as a cake?"
McVities defended its classification of Jaffa Cakes as cakes. In doing so it produced a giant Jaffa Cake to illustrate that its Jaffa Cakes were simply mini cakes.
McVities argued that a distinction between cakes and biscuits is, inter alia, that biscuits would normally be expected to go soft when stale, whereas cakes would normally be expected to go hard. It was demonstrated to the Tribunal that Jaffa Cakes become hard when stale. Other factors taken into account by the Chairman, Mr Potter QC, included: name; ingredients; texture; size; packaging; marketing; presentation; appeal to children; manufacturing process. Contrary to a commonly held belief, whether something is considered a \'luxury item\' is not a test for VAT purposes.
Mr Potter ruled that the Jaffa Cake is a cake. He further ruled that, if it is relevant, it is not a biscuit. McVities therefore won the case and we do not pay VAT on Jaffa Cakes.Lightfoot, Ch.: Jaffa Cakes, June 29 2003. URL last accessed February 16 2006.
There have been a number of spin-off products produced:
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
