Along with Clapton's guest appearance on the White Album track "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and Harrison reciprocating on Cream's "Badge", it is one of several songs that mark the start of a long-lasting musical association between the two guitarists.

An upbeat rock track in the soul genre, the song reflects Harrison's return to the guitar as his main musical instrument after two years of studying the Indian sitar.

Among more recent assessments, Ian MacDonald cited it as an example of the lesser material found on The Beatles, while Daryl Easlea of BBC Music describes it as one of the "doodles that delight" and "a fine counterweight" to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

[6] This period was one of disharmony within the band, following their mixed experiences while attending an advanced course in Transcendental Meditation in India early in the year,[7][8] a group activity that had been led by Harrison's commitment to Eastern spirituality.

[17][18][nb 1] In an interview with the NME in late September, Harrison said he was keen to depart from his image as "Mystical Beatle George" and now wanted to contribute songs without any profound message.

[4][28] Many of the confectionery names used in the song are authentic;[29] others, such as cherry cream, coconut fudge and pineapple heart, were Harrison's invention,[30] based on the flavours listed inside the lid of the box.

[33] Musicologist Walter Everett suggests that "Savoy Truffle" might have been an attempt to rewrite the Byrds' "less innocent" 1968 track "Artificial Energy",[34] which warns of the dangers of amphetamines.

[45] Musicologist Alan Pollack identifies the composition's harmonic style as one that "makes you feel constantly on the move, on the threshold of some new breakthrough", and he adds: "There are other Beatles' songs that exploit this triumvirate of keys (i.e. a parallel Major/minor pair and the relative Major), but never quite with such audacity.

[60][nb 6] The Beatles taped the basic track for "Savoy Truffle" at Trident Studios in London on 3 October 1968,[61] the day after Harrison had recorded his and Clapton's song "Badge" for Cream's forthcoming album.

[62] In his NME interview the previous month, Harrison expressed satisfaction with his increased guitar contributions to the Beatles' recent recording sessions; he also said that their album would be a return to the "funky" rock approach that had characterised their pre-fame performances at Liverpool's Cavern club and in Hamburg.

[29] In his description of the finished recording, Jonathan Gould notes the aptness of Harrison's vocal delivery, where the list of chocolate flavours "roll off George's tongue like a catalog of life's little pleasures".

[73][85] Due to the Beatles' use of pastiche, parody, irony and, in the case of "Savoy Truffle" and Lennon's "Glass Onion", self-quotation,[86] the album's lyrics were intensely analysed by contemporary reviewers.

"[93] Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone praised Harrison's lead guitar playing throughout the album and highlighted the song as an example of the Beatles' success in progressing on their past work, in this case by creating "a more sophisticated look at 'Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds'".

[95] Given the lack of stylistic unity across its 30 tracks,[96][97] many authors have since scrutinised the content of The Beatles with regard to whether the album would have benefited from being scaled down to a single disc,[98][99] an assertion that Martin repeatedly voiced.

[102] Author Alan Clayson has questioned its inclusion in light of Harrison having more substantial compositions that went unrecorded by the band, and, in the case of "Not Guilty", a song that the Beatles recorded but then omitted from the White Album.

[103] In his attempt to reduce the 1968 release to a single LP, Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribune listed all of Harrison's contributions except for "Savoy Truffle", which he included in his "toughest deletions" category, along with three Lennon-written songs.

[107] Former Creem critic Richard Riegel included "Savoy Truffle" on his 1996 list of the ten most underrated Beatles tracks, saying: "this is a great song by any standard, certainly the most fun George would have in the sensual world for many years to come.

[109] He grouped it with "Glass Onion", "Wild Honey Pie" and "Don't Pass Me By" as examples of how each of the four Beatles were represented on the White Album by tracks that, although short of the band's best work, were "certainly the equal of most other pop songs of the era".

[110] Among more recent reviews, Daryl Easlea of BBC Music cites "Savoy Truffle" as an example of "the doodles that delight" on the White Album, and he describes it as "a fine counterweight" to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

[115] Jayson Greene of Pitchfork cites her "jazzy spin" on the track as an example of how Harrison's songwriting appealed to soul and jazz artists and invited fresh interpretations.

[120][121] Along with a sample of the Beatles' "Glass Onion", the song was mashed with Jay-Z's "Encore" for a track on Danger Mouse's The Grey Album in 2004, creating what Spin magazine's reviewer termed a "psychedelic Stax jam".