Here’s one of the fairly recent additions to Tesco’s Free From range and it’s nice to see that their range is ever-expanding still. What instantly attracted me to this product was its packaging; the product rather nonchalantly sits on the shelf looking exactly as cupcakes should, flamboyant, attractive and eye-catching. The plastic see-through container is just an aesthetic bonus as it’s similar to those which the fresh bakery at Tesco uses too; it’s nice to buy Free From cakes which aren’t vacuum-packed in a cardboard box for once. It looked ‘fresh’!
Of course, with all products from the Tesco Free From range, these cupcakes are wheat/gluten free and milk/dairy free too. Since I’m personally only intolerant to dairy, I should be able to provide an insight into how close they resemble the real deal!
A massacre of cupcakes later…
So after a vigorous taste test, these cupcakes made a great afternoon treat. The sponge cake itself was soft and fairly moist with a good consistency; they’re made from rice flour and definitely aren’t as soft and spongy as the real deal, but it’s pretty close.
I really feel like these should just be called strawberry cupcakes since the frosting more than takes over from any trace of vanilla; it has such a rich flavour and is in too great of a quantity to give anything else a look in. To be quite honest, I didn’t realise there was anything to do with vanilla until after they were gone and I re-read the label! In fact, I can’t even find it on the ingredients now… never mind, I love strawberry!
This may only show my opinion on cupcakes in general, not necessarily these particular cupcakes specifically, but there was way too much icing for me. It’s sweet and rich, just as cupcake frosting should be, but after scraping off enough just to leave a nice thin layer on the top, I was much happier. I’m not the biggest fan of icing to begin with and like mine used sparingly – maybe I was drawn in too easily by their alluring looks? 🙂
So how do they fair overall? We’d recommend you give them a go. Unless you’re lucky enough live in Brighton, (the only place I’ve ever seen gluten-free cupcakes readily available) where else can you sample the fun that inevitably comes from cupcakes? They even have chocolate ones too which I’m yet to try, maybe you can let us know on our Twitter or Facebook if you’ve tried them!
Taste: 4
Texture: 4
Close to the real deal? 4
Overall: 4/5 – Pretty good!
