Taste test

COFFEE CAKE

Coffee and walnut is a classic cake combination, ideal for summer tea in the garden.

M&S Columbian Coffee & Walnut Cake, 425g, €4.30, 10/10

The all-butter sponge is light and has good coffee flavour, the icing is fluffy and there’s a generous topping of walnuts. The clear winner for our testers, who went back and polished it off later.

Avoca Coffee Cake, (no weight given but it’s big), €14.95, 8/10

This substantial and beautiful celebratory-looking cake is also nicely buttery, although the sponge is more dense than the M&S version. Our testers said the coffee flavour was not assertive enough and that walnuts would have been preferable to the toasted almonds on the side.

Tesco Finest Coffee & Walnut Cake, 410g, €3.50, 7/10

Pleasant flavour, good sponge and plenty of walnut pieces on top, but our testers thought the amount of Brazilian coffee buttercream icing in the middle layer was stingy.

Sam’s Cappuccino Cake, 190g, €2.99, 5/10

We picked up this two-slice coffee cake at SuperValu. The dry-ish sponge has good coffee flavour but our testers thought that the icing could have been more plentiful and had a stronger taste of coffee; they were disappointed in the lack of nuts.

Lidl Deluxe Coffee & Walnut Cake, 400g, €2.99, 4/10

Although our testers thought this cake looked good, with thick buttercream icing and plenty of nuts, the sponge was very dry and some commented on an unpleasant aftertaste.

Coolmore Cappuccino Cake, 400g, €2.99, 2/10

This coffee-flavoured loafshaped cake comes with added chocolate chips, and the top is decorated with a coffee-flavoured icing and curls of white chocolate. The list of ingredients is very long; our testers were unimpressed.