With the cost of running an electric oven running at about 3 units per hour this can be as much as 60p for many households, making a cake is no longer a cheap option unless you are batch baking for the freezer or filling your oven to capacity to cater for a large family.

In the last few years our family has dwindled in size to 3 at home and I have been experimenting with various shop bought cakes. Firstly I will put you in the picture about my living situation as I now refer to it as living in "The House of Trousers".
For any neighbours fans out there you will know what I mean but for those not familiar with the show I am now living with my husband and son after years of a girly filled household! They are actually delighted to eat my cakes and do so with gusto but they are healthier eaters than me and really it's my love of all things cakey which is fuelling this review! Cakes to me are like beacons. They flash on the shelves and attract me like magnets. However I am quite discerning and only buy them once if they are not to my home baked standard. When my daughters were at home I had more of an excuse to buy them, but with the boys, actually they prefer savoury things so I have had to own up and buy them for myself!

Yorkshire Tea Loaf attracted me as I have been interested in Yorkshire Tea for many years having been born just over the border in Lancashire. The company are a family business with the origins in the 1880s. It is one of the very few family tea merchants in the country. I actually like their tea because they make a special blend for hard water areas like we have in Essex, but it is a strong tea and often needs only a tiny second to brew unless you like it stewed.


They are also very keen on producing their goods ethically and they have donated over a million trees and a million pounds to Oxfam. Most recently they have been planting trees in India in one of the worlds most disaster prone areas in the river basins of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers. This is something very dear to my heart and often now when I go shopping I am thinking about the companies I am buying from with regard to this issue. If they can provide evidence to me that they are actually helping to preserve the world in some way I feel much more positive about them- and if they make cakes so much the better!

Yorkshire Marmalade Cake is a loaf cake which you can find on the shelves usually near Mr Kipling and Mcvities cakes, and it is one of the beacons I told you about that usually flashes just when I get to the cake corner in the supermarket.

Having put on the kettle and found myself a lovely blue and white Cornish plate from the cupboard the fun begins. The shiny golden package tells me this is going to be tasty! The words Taylors of Harrogate and Yorkshire Tea are encased in the shape of a letter T and below them the words Marmalade Cake jump out at me with their saffron orange glow. Made with their own marmalade and with all natural ingredients it has no transfats.
On the side of the pack is a token which can either be put towards a tree to plant in the third world, or it can also be collected to redeem against a selection of gifts from their website.

So what is inside? The cake is a delicate shade of tangerine and a texture which is moist and slightly dense. It has flecks of peel in the loaf and it cuts easily into 6 good size portions.

Now to the flavour-does it remind you of an orange grove in Seville in January when the ripened fruit is harvested and the air is filled with the fresh scent of citrus? Well I have to disappoint you a little here, the flavour is more of marmalade and less of a rich conserve but I think the addition of an orange glace icing which you could easily make would enhance the taste experience. Try mixing icing sugar with orange or lemon juice until it reaches a spreading consistency and then ice the top and decorate with orange segments. It needs something like this to bring out the intense flavour of the orange which is not as strong as I would like it to be. As a slice of cake it does the job but I think it is probably best heated and served with vanilla custard as a pudding. Other ideas for the cake would be to use as a base for an orange trifle. Personally my favourite way to have it is to spread each slice with a good quality marmalade such as the one made by Whole Earth.

However you serve it it is good value. I paid £1.98 inTesco. It might not transport you to an orange grove in Seville if you have it plain, but with an icing, a decoration, or a Quantro- it just might.
I think Paddington bear would like it!