My Packed Lunch Cake used to Cost 11p a Slice – What Does It Cost in 2026?

Years ago, when my two were still in junior school, I used to make a packed lunch cake that worked out at just 7p a slice and then later, I made a chocolate packed lunch cake which cost about 11p a slice. 

I shared the recipes on here at the time, complete with a full cost breakdown using Tesco prices, and it’s always been one of those posts that makes me smile when I come across it because it takes me straight back to the days of making two packed lunches every morning.

With September just around the corner and packed lunches about to become part of the daily routine again for lots of families, I thought it would be interesting to make the exact same cake again and see what it costs in 2026.

Spoiler alert: it’s definitely not 11p a slice anymore. 😂

Why I started making packed lunch cake

I originally started making this cake because the rules guidelines at my two’s junior school frowned upon chocolate bars and bought cakes in packed lunches, but a small piece of homemade cake was acceptable as part of an otherwise healthy and nutritious lunch.

I wanted something that I could make in one batch, cut into small portions and use throughout the week. It needed to be something the kids would actually enjoy, but I also wanted it to be cheap because when you’re making packed lunches day after day, all those little extras soon add up.

And that’s how my packed lunch cake came about.

The version I shared all those years ago cost me £1.71 to make using the ingredients I’d priced up at Tesco. Cut into 15 pieces, that worked out at just 11p a slice.

You can see my original packed lunch cake recipe here if you fancy seeing the original version and its very 2010s prices. 😂

Making my packed lunch cake again in 2026

The recipe itself hasn’t changed.

I’m using:

• 200g self-raising flour
• 200g sugar
• 200g butter or baking margarine
• 50g cocoa powder
• 3 eggs
• A splash of vanilla essence
• 100g (ish) Icing sugar to finish

I’ve deliberately kept everything the same because I wanted this to be as close to a like-for-like comparison as possible.

I’m also using Tesco prices again for my calculations. I already had everything I needed in the house so I haven’t actually gone out and bought the ingredients especially, but using one supermarket’s current prices gives me a much fairer comparison than using whatever I happened to pay for each ingredient at different shops.

And Tesco feels like a pretty good middle-of-the-road option rather than deliberately choosing either the cheapest or most expensive ingredients I could find.

How to make my packed lunch cake

It really couldn’t be much easier to make. Cream the butter and sugar together, beat in the eggs and vanilla and then fold in the flour and cocoa powder. Spoon the mixture into a lined baking tin and bake at 180°C (160°C fan) for around 20–25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Once it’s completely cooled, mix the icing sugar with a little water to make a simple icing, spread it over the top and then cut into 15 pieces.

How much does packed lunch cake cost to make in 2026?

This is the interesting bit.

Here’s how the cost of the ingredients looks using current Tesco prices:

So the cake that originally cost me around £1.71 to make now comes in at roughly £3.11.

That’s an increase of about £1.40 for exactly the same basic homemade chocolate cake.

11p a slice then vs 21p a slice now

This is the comparison I really wanted to see.

When I originally made this cake, £1.71 divided between 15 pieces worked out at around 11p each.

Using today’s prices, £3.11 divided between the same 15 pieces works out at just under 21p each.

So:

Then: 11p per slice

2026: 21p per slice

That’s almost double.

Obviously we’re talking about pennies rather than pounds here, but I think that’s what makes it such an interesting little example of how food prices have changed.

You don’t necessarily notice an extra few pence on a bag of flour or a few more pence on some sugar. Even bigger increases on things like eggs and baking margarine can just become the new normal after a while.

But put all those little increases together in exactly the same recipe and suddenly a cake that cost £1.71 costs more than £3.

Is homemade packed lunch cake still worth making?

Definitely.

Twenty-one pence for a little homemade chocolate treat is still pretty good value, especially when you know exactly what’s gone into it.

There’s also plenty of scope to make it cheaper. I’ve priced this using Stork and free-range eggs because that’s closest to how I costed my original version, but swapping to a cheaper own-brand baking spread would immediately bring the overall cost down.

You could also cut the cake into 20 smaller pieces rather than 15. That’s something I’ve done plenty of times because packed lunch cake was never supposed to be an enormous slab of cake – it was just a little something sweet to have alongside the rest of their lunch.

At £3.11 for the whole cake, 20 little pieces would work out at around 16p each.

It’s the little savings that add up

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I think money saving can sometimes feel as though it needs to involve some huge action to be worthwhile.

It really doesn’t.

Making a batch of cake rather than buying individually wrapped treats isn’t going to transform your finances. Neither is buying something reduced, using something up instead of throwing it away or saving 50p by choosing a different brand.

But do those things regularly and they start to add up.

That’s exactly what I was doing when I first made this cake all those years ago. I wasn’t trying to save a fortune with one tray of chocolate cake. I was just finding a cheaper way to put a little treat into two packed lunches.

And all these years later, even though the price has almost doubled, that’s still exactly what this cake does.

Also, I can confirm that making packed lunch cake when you no longer have children who need packed lunches is absolutely acceptable.

Some things are too good to leave in the junior school years. 😂

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