Not an indulgence, but the sponge is quite good (Sainsbury's 'Basics' Chocolate Chip Cake Bars)

Member Name: GentleGenius

Product:	Sainsbury's 'Basics' Chocolate Chip Cake Bars
Date:	01/12/08 (218 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very cheap, don't taste too bad

Disadvantages: Hard chocolate chips and not many of them, over-packaged

COST: 79p for 5

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION (per cake):

Calories: 112
Kj: 470
Protein: 1.3g
Carbohydrate: 12.8g
- of which sugars: 6.3g
- of which starch: 6.5g
Fat: 6.2g
- of which saturates: 1.6g
- of which mono unsaturates: 2.2g
- of which polyunsaturates: 2.1g
Fibre: 0.4g
Salt: 0.11g
Sodium: trace

INGREDIENTS:

Milk chocolate chips, wheat flour, reconstituted egg, sugar, sunflower oil, vegetable glycerine, rapeseed oil, glucose syrup, palm oil, whey powder, natural flavouring, disodium diphosphate, sodium hydrogen carbonate, mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, xanthan gum, milk protein, whole milk powder, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, emulsifier, soya lecithin, natural flavouring

DIETARY INFORMATION:

Contains milk, egg, wheat gluten and soya
Not suitable for nut allergy sufferers

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These little cake bars are from the Sainsbury's "basics" range. The outer white and orange coloured packaging is made of cellophane, and on the front is the standard "Sainsbury's Basics" logo, the words "5 Chocolate Chip Cake Bars.... with a sprinkling of choc chips, individually wrapped" (on first seeing this, I immediately questioned the wording, in that do they mean each cake bar is individually wrapped, or is each sprinkling of chocolate chips individually wrapped???? - that's just me nit-picking though). To the right of the wording are a few drawn orange shapes, presumably intended to represent chocolate chips, and on the far right, is a pie-chart style section giving very basic nutritional information, and a small logo which informs that the product is suitable for vegetarians.

The back of the outer wrapping gives the detailed nutritional information, ingredients, dietary advice, recycling information, storage instructions and manufacturer's contact details.

Inside the cellophane pack is a shallow white cardboard tray, containing 5 individually wrapped cake bars. The individual wrappers are miniature replicas of the large outer cellophane packaging.

My very first thought on opening the outer wrapper was surprise at what I felt was an unnecessary level of packaging, especially for a "basics" product. I personally feel the white cardboard tray to be unnecessary - the individual wrapping around each cake together with the outer wrapper I'm sure would be sufficient for most people's needs.

Appearance-wise, these little cakes are rather cute - each cake is uniform in size, and approximately 1" deep by 4" long. The sponge cake is a nice golden colour, though at first, I couldn't see any chocolate chips peeping through the outer surface of the cake.

The sponge is very moist and soft, with a very slight vanilla flavour, and once bitten into, a few stray chocolate chips can be located....mostly by crunching down on them, as they are rather hard in texture. Sadly the chips inside the sponge have little or no distinctive chocolate flavour, but the tastiness of the cake almost makes up for that.

I personally find these cakes a little too sweet, but pleasant all the same. There is a very subtle under-taste which springs up once a cake has been eaten, but it's not in my opinion offensive or even remotely off-putting.

OK, when eating these little cake bars, I don't exactly find myself transported off into a wonder-world of "yes that hit my cake spot" bliss, but considering the very low price, Sainsbury's "Basics" Chocolate Chip Cake Bars are a reasonably pleasant product. I would imagine that if you were having guests who demand to be fed cake, and you bought a couple of packs of these, then removed the wrappers, nobody would be able to detect that they are a "basics", very low budget brand.

Verdict: Nothing special, but nicely edible.

Thanks for reading!

Summary: A reasonably OK "basics" product