The Enid Blyton Society

Anita Bensoussane wrote:I suggested that we make a few extra for ourselves, but we overdid things a bit and ended up with 42! I

A bit, Anita?

But honestly if they were as amazing as they sound then overdoing it can't have been a bad thing, eh?

True. There's no such thing as too much cake as far as my family is concerned!

Anita Bensoussane wrote: I suggested that we make a few extra for ourselves, but we overdid things a bit and ended up with 42!

Another clue that the answer to the question of all questions is 42 .

Wolfgang. Very good!

Yasss I LIVE BY THAT Courtenay!

Anita Bensoussane wrote:True. There's no such thing as too much cake as far as my family is concerned!

Likewise

Great comments!

05 May 2015, 19:56pm


It's a date I know many will have etched in their mind forever, as this is when The Great Carrot Cake Challenge commenced.

Can you remember the first cake to step up to the plate - of course you do - it was Tesco's Finest @ £2.65.

So that was spookily almost five years ago to the day,
Well to be honest, I haven't been giving The Great Carrot Cake Challenge a lot of thought, if any lately - have you?

But, earlier this evening whilst on the hunt for some powerful real ale for my wife tomorrow when she finishes her 12hr shift I spotted this on offer in Lidl:



Yes, hand finished and reduced to just £1.11. Negatives: Has to be eaten before 21st May.
That only gives three days to polish it off...

Now, I know what you're thinking - no not that - stay focused on the cake!
You're thinking hasn't the Lidl offering been judged/sampled/reviewed before?

Yes, it probably has, but we must realise this is the 'new improved recipe' up against Tesco's from five years ago at £2.65.

And so later, with a steaming hot mug of co-op 99 tea I will go once more into the breach and sample this cake out of duty again.
What about the previous review? I will trawl through the archives here and rate the 2020 Lidl offering against its older entrant....

To be continued..

I can hardly believe it's 5 years ago! Oh dear, time does fly.

I'm sure any carrot cake will taste good if you've gone without for five years, Pete!

For VE day, I made some carrot scones, and 'mock cream', following wartime recipes. The scones were made with gluten free flour, and we couldn't get any vanilla essence but on the whole they turned out quite well.

Not quite in the same league as carrot cake, which is probably my all time favourite, but as I'd not eaten any kind of cake since early March, they were rather tasty.

Anita Bensoussane wrote:I'm sure any carrot cake will taste good if you've gone without for five years, Pete!

Provided the cake itself hasn't been around for five years...

Yes Daisy is right, time certainly does fly - we must all be having fun! Anita is also right. Eating carrot cake every day for five years would not have given my taste buds the right backdrop to sample Lidl's offering with such salivatory anticipation...

So, I must declare that I trawled back through the thread and found the original review of this cake undertaken some years back.

Cutting a long cake short it scored 3/10 the worst result of any Carrot Cake I have ever tasted and tested.
The price hasn't gone up much over the years either.

So, what was the result?

I would love to tell you that this 2020 cake is a vast improvement. I would like to excitedly say that the 'new improved recipe' was not just marketing hype.
How keen I would be to describe the taste as delectable, moist, slightly sweet and spicy, perfectly iced, with a sumptuous, balanced creamy filling...

But as you've probably already guessed it - I can!!!

This cake was an absolute delight. It has restored my faith in the German supermakets like Lidl and Aldi's ability to improve, respond to criticism and overcome with Triumph - or Honda.

It's is one of life's mysteries why two of these cakes were on the sell off - if people knew how good these new improved carrot cakes from Lidl were would they still be bombing down to waitrose and M&S???



Then of course, delusion and suspicion crept into my mind. Is Anita right? Am I tasting this cake through a five year abstinence coloured pair of glasses?

At heart I can be quite a sceptical chap. Yes really! - Who to turn to for aid? I am the lone sampler here doing a tough job of sampling high class shop bought carrot cakes -then it struck me.
Has the solution struck you yet? Would you like someone to strike you? Julie does a good slap if you should ever need one...

I digress, back to the cake I hear you cry!!
Yes, the cake - the cakes reviews - by Lidl's own discerning customers. People just like you and me..

That had to be the final solution to settle my tasting dilemma!

So, I will say no more - well I might just say a bit..

Here is a small sample of the latest reviews of Lidl's 'new improved' and 'hand finished' too don't forget carrot cake:



https://www.lidlcommunity.co.uk/challen ... -Cake-1843" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Still not convinced? Why not charge down to Lidl and buy one for yourself. I will of course be popping in to Aldi later this week to buy one of their's - purely to see what the competition is up to you understand of course...

Serving Tip: I Put mine in the fridge for about two or three hours before serving myself a small moderate slice with my large mug of tea.

Oh, you want its mark out of ten compared to the last terrible effort they sold a few years ago - yes of course.
For the price, this new Lidl carrot cake is by my reckoning an easy 9/10!

Ooh, definitely sounds worth it, Pete. Next time I can get to a Lidl (there's one in Sevenoaks, not far from me) I'll have to give that a go myself...

Love the review! Glad you enjoyed the cake, Pete! Unfortunately I'm allergic to nuts, so that reduces the number of carrot cakes available to me.