The Biscuit Page

These are stories about cookies/biscuits written for the blog Encounters With Remarkable Biscuits.

Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookie-Right From The Oven

Frances

We Know What We Like-Part Three (And Final) Of The Test Drive

 

 

Finishing up the taste testing of these twelve varieties of biscuits (See part one for the entire list and part two for the tasting results of the rest), finds us nearly carbohydrated out. Even dividing the packages into two groups of six, after the first or second bites of crumbly dry cookies, we never wanted to set eyes or teeth on another one of any type. However, there were some clear winners. Let us get right to the brilliant diatribe offered by testers, M, W, G and F.

7. McVitie’s Digestives-dark chocolate-tasty wheat cookies half coated in plain chocolate (UK)

M-Dry. No real taste.

W-True digestive aid. One taste and you are through eating.

G-Forget the cookie, just scape the chocolate off.

F-Tasteless

8. Schuhmann chocolate coated spice cookies with apricot filling (Germany)

M-Apricot toe jam-same cookie as the berry filled, still not great but liked the spice cookid flavor

W-You can change the filling bit I still don’t like this biscuit

G-Bad chocolate, just wrong, I don’t like this one

F-Yuck. And I love apricots.

9. Arnott’s original chocolate coated biscuits with a chocolate cream center (Australia)

M-If you like bad milk chocolate, you will like this, however, this one gets extra points because it calls itself a biscuit. Still not a tasty biscuit, but a biscuit.

W-Dry, state chocolate shell and wafer. Okay.

G-No! Wrong, wrong taste like a really cheap cookie.

F-I liked this one. Must be really hungry.

10. Gille Galletas de Narahjas-orange oat crisps (Sweden)

M-Like store bought chocolate chip cookies with the chips

W-Kind of like Pillsbury slice and bake

G-Love the crunch, hate the orange. Needs more chocolate.

F-A little too chewy, not bad.

11. Dean’s Oat Biscuits-Sultana and Heather Honey (Scotland)

M-Finally a great butter cookie, but can’t taste the honey. What is a sultana?

W-Taste like it was made in America

G-Love the butter taste and the fact it is made with oats.

F-Very buttery, good.

12. Arnott’s Mint Slice chocolate biscuits (Australia)

M-Good mint, good wafer

W-Like girl scout cookies

G-Needs better chocolate

F-Pretty good actually!

So. A couple of things need to be mentioned here, for the sake of honesty. After the first night of cookie tasting, we could not bear to go through the torture again, so M volunteered to do all the tasting and write all of the reviews. His rendition of W was pretty close to what he probably would have said. His rendition of G, his wife by the way, made me laugh. He must think all she cares about is chocolate or something. He left the F on each sheet blank, to be filled in by the true F, me. I really did like both of the Arnott’s offerings, but my number one favorite was the Mints. In fact, I ate the whole box.

We now feel a stronger kinship to the mother country across the pond. It seems perfectly understandable that eating cookies or biscuits if you like, is an associated memory, wrapped up in nostalgia for people, places and moments in time. Pure taste testing is not really what the extraordinary encounters with biscuits blog is about, it seems to me. Remembering happenings in our lives that included certain brands of confectionary goodness are painted as happy or sad, depending on the circumstances surrounding them. I get it. For now all of these biscuits will be remembered with the filter on the lens of the fun we enjoyed with friends that certain weekend.

The *croun* in the earlier tastings was referring to the packaging of the Daelman’s Dutch caramel wafers. When the top was opened to expose the treats inside, the upper edges were scalloped to suggest a crown. Very clever.

Frances

The First Group Is Bitten-Part Two Of The Test Drive

Allrighty then. The taste test has been completed. The results are in, and they may surprise you. The packages were split into two groups randomly. The four adults, two male, two female would take a bite of each selection and write their thoughts on the communal post it note. There were glasses of water to cleanse the palate between each tasting. One among us was a former restaurant reviewer, he will be referred to as M. The rest of us go by the aliases of W, G, and F. Let’s get to it without delay.

1. Schuhmann chocolate coated spice cookies with berry fruit filling (Germany)

M-Not bad. Middle surprising, looks like toe-jam, but tastes better

W-Tasteless with a hint of Gel

G-So wrong- what is that texture?

F-Liked the filling

2. Cadbury Finger originals-cookies covered with Cadbury milk chocolate (UK)

M-Yuck. I spit it out.

W-A Cadbury disgrace

G-A Kraft product?

F-Okay-liked the shape

3. Dean’s shortbread fingers (Scotland)

M-Little dry, not enough butter, needs lard.

W-Dry, no taste. Where’s the Scotch?

G-Tasty when I got past the paste taste. Love the domino shapes

F-Okay. Attractive gold plastic serving tray

4. Walkers Ginger Royals-luxury ginger shortbread with smooth, dark chocolate (Scotland)

M-Like the cookie-get rid of the chocolate

W-Like the chocolate-get rid of the cookie

G-I prefer the chocolate

F-Chocolate was the best part

5. Bahlsen choco Leibniz-dark chocolate-butter biscuits and dark chocolate (Germany)

M-Boring-needs filling

W-I just don’t understand biscuits

G-My fav-better chocolate and cookie

F-The best-good chocolate

6. Daelmans-the original Dutch caramel wafers-delicious wafers filled with sweet cream caramel (Holland)

M-I like it! My fave so far-burnt sugar pre-chewed wafers

W-My favorite

G-Needed to be crunchy

F-Tasted caramel-croun, liked packaging

Well, as you can see our panel of expert biscuit judges are a group with diverse taste buds in their mouths. They are also a bunch of smart alecks, the mens anyway. We do not know what word F is trying to use on biscuit number six with *croun*. Even with the magnifying glass, this is what has been written. She was not imbibing strong spirits at the time either. Maybe there was a crown on the package? Stay tuned for the answer to this burning question and the remaining six biscuit results with a final wrap up. Heart stopping, feverish excitement will have you sitting on the edge of your seat to see which cookie gets the coveted Big F award as the favorite.

Frances

Test Driving A Few-Part One

Feeling so left out by all of these wonderful biscuit encounters, it was decided that we would search high and low at grocers and specialty shops for the wonderful delicasies to taste for ourselves. There won’t be romantic memories of sweet times gone by involved in this posting, neither parts one or two. This will be a scientific taste test. First the goods must be located. Our local markets were woefully short of stock in the foreign foods sections. Lots from Mexico however. A trip through the larger city of Knoxville, Tennessee, USA recently took us to the World Market, a purveyor of imported foods and merchandise. Jackpot! The shopping cart was loaded with one each of every biscuit from across the pond available. These are not little individual lunch box sized cartons, but each contain a dozen or more of the sweets. Here is the list of what was found. The descriptions, if any were what was written on the front of the packaging, followed by the country of origin. In no particular order, just as they were withdrawn from the shopping bag:

!. Dean’s Oat Biscuits-Sultana and Heather Honey (Scotland)

2. Arnott’s original chocolate coated biscuits with a chocolate cream center (Australia)

3. Arnott’s Mint Slice chocolate biscuits (Australia)

4. Cadbury Finger originals-cookies covered with Cadbury milk chocolate (UK)

5. McVitie’s Digestives-dark chocolate-tasty wheat cookies half coated in plain chocolate (UK)

6. Daelmans-the original Dutch caramel wafers-delicious wafers filled with sweet cream caramel (Holland)

7. Dean’s shortbread fingers (Scotland)

8. Schuhmann chocolate coated spice cookies with apricot filling (Germany)

9. Schuhmann chocolate coated spice cookies with berry fruit filling (Germany)

10. Gille Galletas de Narahjas-orange oat crisps (Sweden)

11. Bahlsen choco Leibniz-dark chocolate-butter biscuits and dark chocolate (Germany)

12. Walkers Ginger Royals-luxury ginger shortbread with smooth, dark chocolate (Scotland)

Well, there you have it. What about this motley crew? Are there any warnings before these packets are opened and my family is exposed to the contents? All had a date stamped on the wrapping of 2010 except the Arnott’s Mints which we purchased for half price. They should still be edible even though the date was April of 2009. That was just for selling, right? Eating can take place later with safe results. Safe but perhaps stale. We fully expect all of these to be on the less than fresh side of the aisle. Are there any recommendation? Eat this one firsts? Don’t dare bite into this ones? We have never tasted any of them before, being biscuit virgins. Stay tuned for the findings by our impartial panel of family members.

Frances

A Biscuit Or Mortar?

They are a good source of calcium, iron and zinc for healthy growth and development. So says the promo on the website for Arrowroot biscuit/cookies. These are even called biscuits in the States, being a little too hard, read like concrete, to fit into the cookie category. When it was noticed while reading the sidebar of this fabulous bit of literaryness that The Tenuous Purpose of this blog includes wishing for an archive of Arrowroot, a little tinkling bell of remembrance rang out in the growing out cinnaberry cerebrum. Arrowroots were recommended by the paternal grandmother of our first born child, Chickenpoet when she grew to be able to sit in the wooden high chair stuffed with pillows to keep her little self upright, as she was teething. Sore red gums needed something soothing and nutritious to gnaw on as the pearly whites broke through. One of these store bought baked goodies was placed on the tray within reach of grasping little fingers. She spied it, grabbed it and straight into the slobbering mouth it went. The idea seemed to be that since this cookie was tough as a brick it would not break off and choke the little darling even with copious amounts of saliva digesting it in hand. True enough, there was no need for a Heimlich Maneuver. However after a thorough cleansing of said child and a little rock a bye to dreamland, the fancy wooden high chair neglected to clean itself of the Arrowroot paste with which it was now covered.

Fast forward a few days. Since the high chair was not really used for feeding yet, the babe was still on a liquid diet at this tender age, the Arrowroot goo had been allowed to set up and cure, becoming a nearly permanent fresco on the heirloom quality chair. When finally it was discovered that the chair’s previously smooth tray, seat, back and legs were now bumpy as a gravel path in the garden, the task began to chisel it back to pristine condition. After all, this was to be used several times a day by the precious person in our care, it had to be perfect. Ah the naivete of a young mother concerning her first born. After many attempts trying to clean the chair with the standard soapy arsenal, it was taken outdoors for a spray with the garden hose. Wetting down the entire thing to soften the biscuit sculptures and scraping each surface down with a plastic cake icing tool did the trick.

The three subsequent offspring were allowed to chew on rubber toys, ice filled teething rings and their own hands and fingers. No Arrowroot was offered up, for with four to keep up with there was no longer the luxury of time to run the high chair through the car wash.

Frances

Hawking The Goods

In the foreign land known popularly as the United States, there is a class of biscuit-cookies like no other. These delicacies cannot be purchased in stores or shops. They are only for sale during spring and can only be had by dealing with young girls in uniform. Are you curious yet? Do you know what these might be? What product would use underage females in such a way in this day and age of child protection laws and helicopter mothers? This is something with which I have the most intimate knowledge for I was at one time not only the leader of such a group of young ladies, aged eight through twelve years of age, but a leader also of the cookie-biscuit sales force, the Cookie Mom.

The organization is called the Girl Scouts in the states, the under ten year olds are called Brownies. How appropriate. My two female offspring were heavily involved in these goings on and I was their troop leader. The largest fund raiser for the troop activities is the cookie-biscuit sales. Each troop was required to sell a certain number of these sweet treats and prizes were awarded to the girls who sold certain quotas. Order sheets were to be taken door to door for neighbors, friends and relatives to fill out how many boxes of each kind of several varieties they would like, to be delivered and paid for at a future date. The numbers would be tallied, the boxes assembled and distributed by the Cookie Mom and the money collected by the girls. Sounds like a piece of cake, doesn’t it?

Young girls collecting money, personal checks taken only as a last resort, door to door. What could be more wonderful? The cookies themselves vary from year to year with a couple of regulars, Thin Mints and Shortbreads always offered. The price steadily rises while the number of cookies per box steadliy shrinks. Surprisingly there are still many folks who will cheerfully pay for these sugary tooth breakers, remembering when their own little darlings were selling them or even when they themselves were part of this height challenged sales force.

Looking back through jaded eyes, it all seems outrageous now, if not some kind of child abuse. But for several years we had cupboards filled to the brim with boxes of Tagalongs, Do-Si-Dos, Thin Mints and Shortbreads, my personal favorite for dunking in tea or coffee. There are cookbooks with recipes to use the cookies as basis for other desserts. They also freeze well. For anyone who was affiliated with this enterprise knows that the parents of the girls end up buying the majority of boxes.

The list of cookies was obtained from the all knowing Wikipedia:

Thin Mints: Thin, mint-flavored chocolate wafers dipped in a chocolate coating.
Peanut Butter Sandwiches/Do-si-dos: Peanut butter filling sandwiched between crunchy oatmeal cookies.
Peanut Butter Patties/Tagalongs: Crispy vanilla cookies layered with peanut butter and covered with a chocolate coating.
Shortbreads/Trefoils: A traditional shortbread cookie made in the shape of the Girl Scout trefoil logo.

Samoas are also called Caramel deLites.Caramel DeLites/Samoas: Vanilla cookies coated in caramel, sprinkled with toasted coconut and laced with chocolate stripes.
All Abouts/Animal Treasures/Thanks-A-Lot: : Shortbread cookies dipped in fudge and topped with an embossed thank-you message in one of five languages, including English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and Swahili.
Lemon Chalet Cremes: Cinnamon sandwich cookies with lemon creme filling.
Cinna-spins Introduced in 2008 by ABC Bakers, Cinna-spins are cinnamon-flavored cookies that come in 100-calorie packs. Cinna-spins are shaped like miniature cinnamon rolls. Retired and replaced by Daisy Go Rounds.
Daisy Go Rounds: Very similar to Cinna-spins, this cookie replaced them for the 2009 sale. They are advertised as low fat and also come in 100 calorie packs. They are cinnamon flavored and shaped like daisies. These cookies are only available from ABC Bakers.
Sugar Free Chocolate Chips Introduced in 2008, they are small sugar free cookies.
Dulce De Leche Introduced in 2009, these are Latin caramel cookies.
Lemonades Round shortbread cookie with lemon icing.

Do any of these sound like the English type biscuit?

Frances

Cookies Or Biscuits

Inquiring minds want to know how the British commonwealth’s term got switched at birth in the US. We do not know the answer to that question but here is what we do know.Packaged, purchased biscuits are not something about which we in the US wax poetic. There are no romantic stories about sharing the last crumbs, childhood memories about advertisements or strongly held notions of which brand is best. None of it. The recipe below makes what we refer to as biscuits.

Let us begin with the training of a young southern girl. There was not much training in fact, in any of the culinary arts, except one, the baking of from scratch biscuits. Why home made is called *from scratch” is a mytery. This was the only kitchen training received at my mother’s apron strings. Wash your hands well and let’s get started. Using the old text, printed 1965, copyrighted 1896, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, from whence all things culinary were learned upon leaving the nest, we turn to page 311. Quick Breads, Biscuits and Coffee Cakes, the heading reads. First on the page, Baking Powder Biscuits.

The shortening may be all butter or margarine, all lard or other cooking fat or oil, or half of each. Lard makes very flaky biscuits, for richer biscuits double the amount of shortening.
To serve piping hot, bake and serve in a glass pie plate.
Split leftover biscuits, toast lightly, butter and serve for breakfast or tea.

Sift into a mixing bowl
2 cups all purpose flour
4 teaspoons tartrate-type baking powder or 2 teaspoons “double-action” type
1 teaspoon salt
With fingertips or a pastry blender or fork, work in
2 tablespoons shortening
With a fork, quickly stir in
2/3 cup milk
Add more milk, little by little, until the dough is soft and light but not sticky. (Flours differ so much that it is impossible to tell exactly how much milk you will need.)
Turn out onto a floured board. With floured hands, pat down or knead about 20 strokes until smooth. Roll lightly 3/4 inch thick. Shape with a biscuit cutter or roll out into an oblong and cut in diamonds with a knife. Place on an ungreased cooky sheet, close together for soft biscuits, 1 inch apart for crusty ones. Prick with a fork.
Bake 12 to 15 minutes at 450 degrees. Makes 12 to 15.

There is no other way to have a biscuit worthy of the name than to make it yourself. Or you will never snag a husband.

My favorite way to eat the fresh out of the oven baked good is with real butter and honey and/or maple syrup, warm. Thinly sliced ham on a buttered biscuit is a southern tradition, but not my cup of tea. There is also chicken and biscuits, with the chicken pulled apart and simmered in a stew like recipe served over split biscuits. Another favorite way is with browned loose pork sausage and a white gravy. These are all easily found at most restaurants and homes where people still cook their own food in the southern United States.

Cookies are similarly best eaten warm right from the oven also, but that is a totally different basket of fish.

But to feel a part of the larger whole, we once ordered from the UK some plum jam and Duchy biscuits from the larder of Prince Charles. The jam was really good.

Frances