Tested and tasted: these are the tastiest pink cakes from the supermarket (and the nastiest!)
Do you remember those glazed cakes you could buy in the school cafeteria? They came rolling out of the vending machine for a few cents, or you got them at the counter. And the truly lucky ones knew there was also a pack in the pantry at home. In search of that secondary-school feeling, we tasted the pink cakes from supermarket own brands – and, for comparison, the one and only Enkhuizer pink cakes.
We mindlessly stuffed dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them down during exam week. But when you consciously taste those pink cakes, you do notice a few things. The colour, for starters: Albert Heijn’s cakes are more purple than pink, Dekamarkt’s glazes have a white sugary edge around the icing, and Jumbo’s are so brightly coloured they could make you snow-blind.
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- Albert Heijn, 6 koeken voor 0,92 euro. De cake is misschien een beetje droog, maar dat maakt het smeuige glazuur helemaal goed. Opvallend paars glazuur.
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- Lidl, 8 (kleine) koeken voor 0,92 euro. Opvallend: de cakejes – iets kleiner dan de andere koeken – smaken een beetje naar amandel. Erg lekker, maar niet wat we van een roze koek verwachten. Maakt niet uit, dit pakje is zo leeg.
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- 5. Enkhuizer Glacé, 4 koeken voor 0,97 euro. Dit is De Ware. Lekker veel fondant over de randjes. En als je ‘m langer vasthoudt, smelt het fondant een beetje: HEERLIJK.
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- Dekamarkt en Dirk, 4 koeken voor 0,61 euro. Het was niet makkelijk een verpakking te vinden zonder verbrokkelde koek. ‘Dikke glazuurlaag, lekker zoet!’
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- 4. Jumbo, 6 koeken voor 0,92 euro. Oei, deze roze koek is veel te zoet, dat vindt zelfs de ergste zoetbek van het proefpanel. De cake is vettig en klef, het glazuur heeft een kauwgumballensmaak. De verliezer…
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- 6. Aldi, 6 koeken voor 0,99 euro. ‘Als je een hapje neemt, brokkelt de fondant zo af.’ Erg zoet, en dus een beetje kuch kuch droge cake.
Tasty, but not the way it should be
You can taste differences in the cake base too. One cake is sweet and sticky, another leaves crumbs in your throat, and some of the little cakes have an almond flavour. Tasty, but not typically pink cakes. Strange: the cake base of Jumbo’s cakes resembles a soggy cake, the kind you know from slices served with coffee at a funeral. No, that’s not a cheerful association, and these cakes don’t make us happy either.
A classic
Our favourite? That remains the real Enkhuizer glazed cake, even when we taste them without knowing which cake comes from which supermarket. The cake is still just as vanilla-chemical as it was back then, and the layer of icing is simply perfect. ‘You know it’s a good pink cake when you can see your fingerprint in the icing after holding the cake for a while,’ says Lauretta, whom we can safely call an expert when it comes to sweets and biscuits. Number two is Albert Heijn’s cake. That icing again: ‘lovely and creamy,’ says Sharon, despite the purple colour. That’s because of beetroot juice; this pink cake contains no carmine, the colouring made from cochineal insects.
Like something from a fairy tale
Unfortunately, there’s also a cake that is a huge disappointment. And that is – sorry, we have to say it – Jumbo’s. It looks like a cake from a cartoon or a fairy tale, thanks to its pink colour and wonderfully yellow cake. But that flavour doesn’t win any points. The cake is soggy and spongy, and the icing is so sweet that even sweet-toothed Lauretta finds it too much. No, we’re not going to eat these. We’d rather solve differential equations, or something.
