Brief Guide to Biscuits
Biscuits We all love them don't we. But what exactly is a biscuit?
Taxonomy of biscuits
Cakes Usually easily distinguished from biscuits by their sheer size however individual cakes can be a bit tricker, for instance the macaroon. Also the Jaffa Cake despite having the word cake in its name can confuse some people.
Crackers Crackers are aimed at savory use such as cheese and crackers, however you sometimes get those hovis sweetmeal digestives, I don't know why, in big boxes of crackers, which is obviously confusing. Generally you wouldn't want to dunk one in your tea.
Chocolate covered Half way between biscuits and chocolate bars, are the chocolate covered biscuits. A bit of a grey area but this is where we encounter individual foil wraps, and strange quasi cake, biscuit hybrids like the Waggon Wheel. Also the home of the Jacobs Club biscuit, although this is a sad shadow of its former self thanks to the French again.
Chocolate Bars The Kit Kat is a good example of the transitional phase from chocolate covered to full chocolate bars like the picnic.
How to spot biscuits
* They come in packets * They have two sides * You could dunk them in tea
Entry level
* They come in clear cellophane wrappers * They aren't so nice that you could eat a whole packet * They are homogeneous
Mid range
* Anything with a currant, or some sort of fruit in it * Twin layer affair with some sort of cream up the middle * Wrapper has pictures on it. * Some sort of USP
Luxury
* Any thing with chocolate on top. * May be in a cardboard box
Some suggestions (from the UK):
Abbey Crunch Abricot Barquettes Afghans All Butter Arnott's Gaiety Bahlsen Afrika Biscato Spicy and Plain Digesta Blue Riband Breakaway Breton Biscuit Super Review Cadbury Oat and Fruit Caxton Pink'n'Whites Chocolate Caramel Club Milk Coconut Cream Cornish Fairings Custard Cream Digestive Fig Roll Fox's Classic Fruit Shortcake Girl Scout Cookies Graham cracker Griffins Sultana Pasties Happy Faces HobNob Iced Gems Jam Sandwich Creams KitKat Marks and Spencer Dunking Cookies Maryland Double Choc Chip Cookie Nabisco Nutter Butter Oreo Penguin Ponghak Butter Ringtons Ginger Snap Romany Creams Sainsbury's Lemon Thin Sarah Nelson's Gingerbread Shortcake Strawberry Newton Tesco's Organic Fruit Bake Biscuits ToffyPops Wagon Wheel Waitrose Almond Biscuits Weston's Wagon Wheels
From NiceCupofTeaandaSitDown.com