Taste test

LEMON DRIZZLE CAKE

Lemon drizzle cake is the one to choose when you need a crowd-pleaser, but which one? The Butler’s Pantry, no weight given, €7.95, 9/10 This generous loaf-shaped classic drizzle cake looks like the one that your granny makes — if you are lucky enough to have a talented-in-the-kitchen granny. You could pass this off as homemade, with its crack down the middle and random ribbons of lemon zest by way of decoration. The sponge is good and lemony, soaked in syrup and clearly made with butter. Tesco Finest Lemon Drizzle, 408g, €4.20, 8/10 This is a round, zesty, lemon sponge cake, the middle filled with lemon buttercream and lemon curd, and the top hand-decorated with Sicilian lemon drizzle icing. For a supermarket cake, this is pretty good — our testers liked it a lot. 266 calories per serving. Dunnes Simply Better Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake, 365g, €4.49, 8/10 Made for Dunnes by Sam’s Cookies in Wicklow, the recipe for this handmade classic loaf uses Irish butter and free-range eggs, and the cake is drizzled with a freshly made lemon syrup when it comes out of the oven. Our testers would have liked a little more zest, but appreciated the wholesome ingredient list. About 225 calories per serving. M&S Lemon Drizzle Cake, 405g, €4.50, 5/10 The round sponge is soaked in a lemon juice syrup and the cake is topped with a thickish layer of lemon icing. Our testers thought that the sponge was heavy and would have liked the cake to be more lemony. Contains palm oil. 259 calories per serving. Morton’s Lemon Drizzle Cake, 500g, €6.95, 3/10 Our testers were not fans of this cake from Morton’s. The sponge is made with margarine, for one thing, and is not very lemony. They thought that the decorative swirls of chocolate icing (on top of the lemon icing) had no place in a lemon cake. And as for the lemon jellies studding the top...