Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Supermarket versus Homemade...

There have been a lot of posts on that there Facebook recently about the ingredients that go into cakes and what is in your cheapy cakes from the supermarket, so I thought I'd share my experience of supermarket cakes. Last year I was asked to decorate a supermarket bought cake for a lady who was on a super tight budget but wanted a nice looking cake for her mum's 80th. I wasn't too keen, but I agreed. My customer brought me a plain rectangular white iced cake from a well known supermarket to decorate. To say it was shoddily iced was an understatement! The icing was very thinly applied, and had a load of cracks. The edge where it met the cake board wasn't neat (see the piccie where I peeled away the ribbon) - all in all, not good! 


I also took a photo of the ingredients - I've never heard of half of these! This is one of the major differences between a supermarket cake and a home made one. You might end up paying more for a home made cake, but it's got to be worth it knowing what goes into the supermarket ones to give them such a long shelf life! 


Here's what we put into a typical lemon sponge cake at Jo's Cakes - flour, caster sugar, stork, fresh lemons, free range eggs - not 100 different preservatives! 


For our fillings, again we use fresh fruit juices and rinds where appropriate and 2 other ingredients. Bit of a difference, I think you'll agree. With a home baked cake you know your cake has been made with love and care, is much better for you than one with a load of chemicals in and probably tastes a million times nicer as well! 

xx

No comments:

Post a Comment