[FnG]magnolia;11153573 said:
This is the only slightly interesting thing that this thread will produce. VAT man tried to get his hands on it back in, I think, the 80's and failed.
Here ya go ....
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Surprise surprise the Jaffa Cake is indeed a cake which is why they named called it that. Its base is made from sponge cake, not biscuit, they must have been thinking about that when they called it a Jaffa Cake.
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Yes, yes, we are only to well aware of the theory that biscuits take up moisture when the go stale becoming limp conversely a cake looses it becoming hard, thus proving the Jaffa Cake to be a cake as its bottom is made of sponge cake as we already know. This is all well and good but has several noticeable exceptions such as the Fig roll and so cannot be relied upon. Better just to say its a cake.
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Equally enticing but flawed is the idea that cakes contain eggs especially sponges like in the case of the Jaffa Cakes sponge bottom. Therefore biscuits simply are eggless baked things. Well that makes the Almond biscuit a cake so no luck there.
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I know they sell them along with the biscuits, in packs just like biscuits, and McVities is a brand of United Biscuits (who also make cakes) but it’s still a small cake.
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Some people are confused by the size and think that to be a cake something has to be quite big. Well that’s just a slur on those big bags of madeleines favoured by Marcel Proust or Mr Kiplings more diminutive offerings such his 8 packs of French Fancies.
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Yes the VAT man wanted it to be a biscuit. That way it would fall by virtue of its chocolate coat into a category of products liable to VAT at the standard rate, i.e. luxury biscuits. As a cake however it is zero rated for VAT, no matter how luxuriant, much to the VAT man’s continuing annoyance. In fact Wifey and I once had a chat with ex Tory Minister John Knott who brought in VAT when the Conservative Government of the time took Britain into the Common Market. He recalled that the whole VAT introduction went surprisingly well expect for the Jaffa cake which caused all sorts of problems. In 1991 the matter went to a tribunal (number 6344 in case you were wondering) in which the VAT man argued that the Jaffa wasn’t a cake and so should not be exempt from VAT (VATA 1983 Sch 5 Group 1 excepted item 2), trotting out all the old arguments. McVities countered with all of the other old arguments plus a specially prepared 12 inch Jaffa Cake, which focused the tribunal’s attention on the sponge base. The tribunal concluded that, while the product also had characteristics of biscuits or confectionery which was not cake, it had sufficient characteristics of cakes to be a cake for the purposes of zero-rating. (The tribunal also determined that the product was not a biscuit.)
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Finally despite all of this Wifey still thinks they are biscuits.
Love them
Some of the foreign imitation ones are quite nice too.