Welsh Cake Tasting: M&S vs. Waitrose

Our recent trip to Wales has developed my curiosity about Welsh cakes, which led myself to a small project: Wales cake tasting! To understand Welsh cakes better, I thought I should eat more. I have seen Welsh cakes at both M&S and Waitrose stores. Both packages highlighted "all butter," "baked on a griddle and flipped by hand,"and "made in (produced and packed in) Wales." They looked like twins but would both taste the same? I just found it out.

First, check their ingredients. Both were similar but not completely the same. For example,

M&S: unsalted butter (18%), Vostizza currants (15%)
Waitrose: unsalted butter (17%), Vostizza currants (18%)

M&S's contains dried skimmed milk; Waitrose's doesn't but does water. They use different rising agents. Their somewhat different levels of fat, sugar and salt levels must come from these differences of ingredients, I guess. In terms of spices, M&S uses ground nutmeg; Waitrose says only "spices." Mysterious...

I heated both cakes slightly in toaster oven. I thought they looked identical first but when I saw them side by side, actually M&S's were a tiny bit bigger and more sugar on surface than Waitrose's. So, did they taste the same? Answer was nope. I mean, they tasted similar but M&S's were more flavorful. Their nutmeg flavor stood up. Also M&S's were nicely tender and moist while Waitrose's drier. It could be only for these particular batch, but maybe because of the ingredient difference? In short, M&S won in my opinion. J agreed with me.