Choose breakfast cake with dark chocolate if chocolate flavour is your priority, but don’t take ‘dark’ as proof of a high cocoa content: Albert Heijn lists 13% chocolate and cocoa powder for Peijnenburg Chocolade Dubbel Donker, without giving a cocoa percentage. If you’re mainly looking for a sliced loaf to keep in your student room, compare wholemeal breakfast cake and varieties with no added sugars too, using the ingredients and nutritional information on the exact pack.
You want breakfast cake to enjoy with a coffee or while studying, and chocolate flavour matters to you. If cocoa content is what will determine your choice, check for an explicitly stated cocoa percentage; ‘dark’ in the product name isn’t enough.
You’re looking for a pack that suits how often you eat breakfast cake. Sliced portions are handy to keep in your room; individually wrapped portions may be a better fit if you want to take some with you.
You choose based on the ingredients and nutritional information, rather than just the flavour or the front of the pack. Compare sugars and fibre per 100 g, and check the amount per slice too if you’re looking at individual portions.
First decide whether flavour, a practical supply, sugar information or wholemeal flour matters most to you. Then compare the exact varieties on the label: these features don’t necessarily go hand in hand.
| What to consider | Check | Who is this important to? |
|---|---|---|
| Dark chocolate flavour | The proportion of chocolate and, if it matters to you, an explicitly stated cocoa percentage. | If I mainly want chocolate flavour to enjoy while studying or having a coffee, I won’t let the word ‘dark’ in the name decide for me. Around 36% of consumers put this flavour first. |
| Pack size and supply | The pack size, whether it contains sliced portions or individual portions, and the best-before date. | When stocking my room, I want a pack whose contents I’ll actually use. For around 29% of consumers, having the right amount in stock is the main consideration. |
| Sugars and ingredients | ‘Of which sugars’ per 100 g and per portion; check the ingredients list too. | If I want to compare varieties by sugar content, I look beyond ‘no added sugars’ on the front of the pack. Around 21% of consumers prioritise comparing the labels. |
| Wholemeal flour and fibre | Which wholemeal flour is used, and how much fibre and sugar is listed per 100 g? | If I regularly eat breakfast cake in my room, I want to know what ‘wholemeal’ means for that variety. Around 14% of consumers put this first. |
Albert Heijn lists 13% chocolate and cocoa powder for Peijnenburg Chocolade Dubbel Donker, but doesn’t give a cocoa percentage. So you can’t work out the percentage from the product name.
Choose it for the flavour if that’s what you’re after; only use cocoa content as a deciding factor if the pack states the percentage.
Peijnenburg lists 5.1 g of fibre and 39 g of sugars per 100 g for its sliced wholemeal breakfast cake. The word ‘wholemeal’ doesn’t tell you how much sugar it contains.
Check both the ingredients and the nutritional information per 100 g for the variety you’re considering.
The term ‘breakfast cake’ doesn’t tell you which type of salt is used in the variety you’ve chosen.
If whether it contains baker’s salt or iodised salt matters to your choice, check the ingredients list on the exact pack.
Peijnenburg offers varieties with chocolate, wholemeal flour and no added sugars. Compare the exact packs: features of one variety don’t necessarily apply to another.
ALDI lists both sliced wholemeal breakfast cake and a 485 g zero-sugar variety from Koek & Bakker.
At Albert Heijn, you can compare own-brand and branded breakfast cake varieties side by side.
These two options suit different ways of adding breakfast cake to your student shop: one pack offers individual portions, while the other is a sliced wholemeal variety to keep in your room. Don’t choose them based only on a search for a dark chocolate flavour.
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An option if you want to take individual portions of breakfast cake with you. The pack contains 250 g; if the sugar claim matters to your choice, compare it with the nutritional information on the pack.
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A sliced wholemeal option for anyone who wants to keep portions in their room. The pack contains 485 g; compare sugars and fibre on the label if you’re weighing it up against other wholemeal varieties.
No, the name alone doesn’t tell you the cocoa content. Albert Heijn lists 13% chocolate and cocoa powder for Peijnenburg Chocolade Dubbel Donker, but doesn’t state a cocoa percentage. If that percentage will determine your choice, check for an explicit claim on the label.
Compare ‘of which sugars’ on a like-for-like basis, preferably per 100 g, then check the amount per portion. The Netherlands Nutrition Centre lists 11.2 g of sugar for a 30 g slice of regular breakfast cake; the nutritional information on the variety you buy is what matters for that product. ‘No added sugars’ doesn’t mean ‘sugar-free’.
Read the ingredients list and any allergen information on the exact pack, even if you’ve bought a different variety from the same brand before. The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority explains how allergens are listed on food labels; the product name alone won’t give you this information.
Check the ingredients list on the pack for the type of salt used, such as baker’s salt or iodised salt. Don’t assume it based only on the fact that the product is breakfast cake.
