h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'd only be over the moon because my grandmother had clearly got her vocabulary muddled and brought out cake (in the form of Jaffa Cakes) rather than biscuits.

Kendal Mint Cake anyone ?

Pontefract (pronounced 'pomfret') cakes are disgusting, black, lozenge shaped sweets made from the licourice plants that grow in the grounds of a disused monestary in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. Any connection between this revolting product and Jaffa Cakes should be taken out and spoken to severely before being flushed down the loo - thus cutting out the middle man

Last time I went round to my Gran's for tea, she brought out a cake of soap.

Ah, my gran automatically goes for the jaffa cakes. I did eat a cake of soap once when I was young though.

Here's a snippet of information that has a certain level of interest (none):

I was told that during the manufacture of margarine, it goes through a stage for which the technical term is 'soap'.

This may explain the taste - 'I can't believe it's not butter', forsooth!

Pontefract Cakes are neither cake or biscuit because that implies that they are edible, which, as anybody remotely sane will realise, they are not. (Therefore my Dad and Uncle are quite clearly insane because they actually enjoy eating them).

Quite right. A possable change of name, just call them Pontefracts and you can have mere minutes of fun trying to work out what they're for. And on teh Jaffa Cake argument, Semantics aside you can always argye cake because that will keep the price down (ost important thing)

not neccisarily cakes

Look. i could argue that Jaffa Cakes are cakes because they are a sponge base toppedf with a topping. However, to stress my point, who cares who's right as long as they are cheaper?

Jaffa Cakes aren't buiscuits. Not cakes either. what they really are is a new sub genus of snack type comestible, neither one nor the other, yet kind of like both in ways that are more exciting. A bit like monotremes (duckbilled platypusses etc.)
monotremes= 50% reptile +50% mammal = exciting new type of animal
jaffa cakes= 50% sponge cake + 25% marmalade + 25%chocolate digestive = exciting new snack experience.
also has anyone noticed that there is another possibilty jaffa cakes may as yet be a new type of toast as this is normally the only viable use of marmalade!

Jaffa cakes are far from biscuits. they are soo perishable if you dont eat them within 0.0001 seconds of opening the packet, they go hard and crumbly. not nice.

"in the case of the Jaffa Cake it mattered a great deal to the taxman, as the somewhat bizarre rules concerning which products were subject to VAT and which escaped it due to zero-rating were a bit woolly in regard to the inhabitants of the biscuit kingdom. As a cake, the Jaffa was zero-rated, and given how many of them we see off as a nation that equates to a great deal of missed revenue. Biscuits are zero-rated too, unless they are "luxury" items, which according to the guidelines includes any that have chocolate on top. Cakes, no matter how opulent or fancy, are always classed as a staple food and zero-rated. In 1991 McVitie's and the taxman famously had their day in court and after a 12-inch-wide Jaffa Cake was produced as evidence they found, 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."

Jaffa cakes have been definied, by law, to be a cake.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/dec/14/letuseatzeroratedcakes