Aldi vs Lidl Jaffa Cakes: We Tried Them & One Lost So, So Hard

To be honest, cookies shouldn’t be tied to any particular season meteorologically. That said, if you live somewhere where it’s getting a bit nippy out, it’s just a lot easier to leave the grocery store with a box of cookies.

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As eager as I am to eat all the cookies, I think it’s also the perfect time of year to introduce the Jaffa cake into my tea-and-dipped-sweet-thing repertoire. If you’ve never had a Jaffa cake, a few things to know: they’re a British tea biscuit dating back to a company originally called McVitie and Price in 1927, they’re basically very simply-structured (sponge cake base, jellied fruit filling, thin layer of dark chocolate on top), and yes Mary Berry had them as a Technical Challenge on Season 7 of The Great British Baking Show (aka GBBO). 

While several UK brand Jaffa cakes, including McVitie’s, are available stateside, turns out both Aldi and Lidl have store brand versions of their own. And whatever else Aldi and Lidl are competing about, in the Jaffa cake game, one store absolutely dominates. 

Aldi ― Benton’s Zingy Orange Jaffa Cakes

Pros: The orange flavor is fresh and fragrant at first. “Zingy” a hundred percent belongs in the title. And it bounces nicely against the dark chocolate. Also, the size is decent―not too bulky, not too dainty, definitely tea cake range. 

Cons: Where to begin? Appearance. Both Benton’s Jaffa cakes have a duller, almost dusty finish to the chocolate coating. Also for both, the fruit filling seems to have slid off-center from cookie to cookie, so there’s a mini chocolate hump in various places on each one. The sponge is also incredibly dry. Once it hits your tongue, it starts to crumble, and will leave little trails of dust on your plate or, in my case, your very classily folded paper towel. Lastly, the orange is zingy, sure, but has no edge―not even a faint hint of bitterness or pithy fragrance (which would sing against dark chocolate, trust me), so it all ends up far too sweet. Ultimately, a sweet, dusty, zingy crumble with dark chocolate coating that appears to have retired several years ago. 

Aldi ― Benton’s Sweet Raspberry Jaffa Cakes

Pros: Similar pros to its Zingy orange brother in both size and proportion (also proportion of sponge to jelly to chocolate coating). But nothing redeemable here can be said of the “raspberry” filling. Except, okay, it is technically “sweet,” so they got that right in the name. 

Cons: Same cons as its zingy orange brother, alas. So crumbly and dry, my tea became a medical necessity. Also a big, even bigger con here than in the orange version―the flavor of the raspberry isn’t just two-dimensional, it’s overtly artificial-tasting. I didn’t even bother to look at the ingredients. However it’s made, they lost their way from the raspberry patch long, long ago. At least there were fewer crumbs left behind (because the bad raspberry flavor made it harder to finish). 

Lidl ― Sondey Orange Flavored Jaffa Cakes

Pros: Like the Benton’s, I should mention a basic pro (it’s Aldi and Lidl, after all): price. The box is just a bit under $2.50. That said, this cookie―both flavors―thankfully has more pros than their Benton’s cookie rivals: the sponge is soft, the chocolate coating is silky and even has a delicately ribboned sheen, and the orange filling isn’t just sweet (or tangy). It’s actually very reminiscent of the Terry’s Chocolate Orange flavor. 

I’m not a Jaffa cakes expert, but of all four varities, these hit the Jaffa nail on the head: dainty yet dramatic. Indulgent to eat but not heavy, with that citric-dark chocolate yin-yang thing actually perking up the palate. Excellent tea cake.

Cons: Pretty much proportionately opposite to Benton’s, almost no cons―the orange veers a bit sweet? But there’s just enough of it (with that tidy, shiny, delicately bitter dark chocolate cap) that it works. 

Lidl ― Sondey Cherry Artificially Flavored Jaffa Cakes

Pros: It’ll sound like a strange pro, but I like that it says “Artificially flavored” right on the box―as in directly underneath where the flavor, “Cherry,” is announced. The rest of the cookie has the very same pros as the orange Sondey―decidedly non-dry sponge base, nicely springy and a bit moist, perfect proportion of (candyish, medicinal cherry) jelly, and (demurely redeeming) shiny coating of well-tempered dark chocolate with tiny ribbons of white chocolate. 

Cons: That. Cherry. Flavor. Honesty on the packaging aside, that artificial cherry flavor is just undeniably a miss. Had this been raspberry, even artificial, I’d have given it an 8, maybe. As it stands, they did everything else so well in this cookie, and the Sondey people clearly have their Jaffa game down. Why ruin a good thing with a such a basic, avoidably bad filling?