Is a Jaffa Cake a biscuit or a cake?

It’s a delicious structure consisting of a small sponge with a chocolate cap covering a veneer of orange jelly. It is arguably one of Britain’s greatest inventions after the steam engine and the light bulb.

But is a Jaffa Cake actually a biscuit or a cake?

This question reheats a confectionery conundrum first raised in 1991. A tax is charged on chocolate-covered biscuits, but not on cakes. The manufacturer, McVities, had always categorised them as cakes and to boost their revenue the tax authorities wanted them recategorised as biscuits.

A legal case was fought in front of a brilliant adjudicator, Mr D C Potter. For McVities, this produced a sweet result. The Jaffa Cake has both cake-like qualities and biscuit-like qualities, but Mr Potter’s verdict was that, on balance, a Jaffa Cake is a cake.

I have to say that I personally would call them a biscuit … they are located in the biscuit aisle in supermarkets, they look like a biscuit, and McVities introduced a Jaffa Cake Bar which is undeniably a cake.

What are your views? They are packaged like biscuits, and they are marketed like biscuits: they are usually found in the biscuit aisle in shops. So are they a cake or a biscuit?