The first store I visited wouldn't sell me any because they were "waiting for a manager to set them up" (your guess is as good as mine) but fortunately the nice manager that I found in the bakery department of Hereford's smaller Tesco retrieved me some from the freezer. Thank you kind sir! The four pack cost £1, and I just prayed that they were better than their Christmas Red Velvet muffins.
The muffins were a decent size and colour, speckled with sugar crystals on their tops.
I sliced through and discovered how close crumb it was. Was that all of the filling? I thought M&S were stingy, but this was ridiculous, there could only be a teaspoonful of cream cheese at the bottom there.
The cake was well spiced with a strong cinnamon flavour and a slight warmth from the ginger. There were hints of carrot throughout, but it wasn't as prominent as one would expect in a home made version. The texture was soft, but it was so moist that it was claggy and almost raw in places.
It wasn't just the cream cheese that was missing either. Where were the raisins at? Surely a carrot cake has to have dried fruit in too? Humf. One of the qualities I love most about carrot cake is the plump raisins that break up the texture and burst in your mouth as you munch.
I did enjoy the sugar crystal topping however, which reminded me of country cake (albeit without the raisins).
As for the cream cheese at the bottom, it was fairly good, but its location and meagreness meant that it was impossible to enjoy some with every mouthful of cake.
Tesco' Carrot Cake muffins are kind of the anti-cupcake I suppose. Let's hope M&S carrot cake muffins are better, and if not I'll be sticking to their buns.
6/10
When I had the German version of carrot cake, Rublikuchen, I really missed both the American/English spicing standard and the raisins. Raisins totally make a carrot cake and if they're missing, then I'm not sure it counts as a carrot cake! There really should be a law about that, actually.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if the first store wouldn't sell them to you because they were still frozen and you're supposed to imagine they've been recently baked. I'd actually not considered that Tesco might supply its stores with frozen bakery items they've got to defrost... Either way, doesn't look like it deserved the effort that went into getting it! Was the lack of filling a one off?
That's how most -if not all- of the supermarkets do their muffins, as well as many of their doughnuts. I've had them frozen from the Co-Op and Morrisons before too! Agreed on the carrot cake law.
Delete