Your ViewsKeep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions. To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin). Please keep your mails coming in to nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com | If you like, you can use this search thingy to find stuff that matches with any of the icons you pick, or use the fantastic free text search, Yay! | Your e-Mails |
Paul MacFarlane |
Would you believe....
I literally just stumbled onto your site after just now making a cup of Kashmiri chai tea and having a ginger snap here late, late at work tonight and thought--wouldn't it be cool, if there was a site CALLED www.nicecupof... and up you popped! : D
Would you also believe, I'm a happy 43-year-old American-born Anglophile who detests coffee, loves tea and biscuits, cakes, the lot, you know... and supports the England squad and several English football teams that I've loved ever since..ahhhhh....sniff, sniff... 1966!
Been over there a couple of times--and my wife and I would love to disappear in the back of any of a hundred country pubs-- anytime!
Really, Nice one.
I'll be hitting your site rather a lot I should think, p'raps 'round 4?
Cheers
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Nicey replies: Excellent and also a coincidence that we were reviewing Ginger Nuts this week. We were going to use nicecupoftea as our domain name by that was being cyber-squatted so we went for the the more correct and full nicecupofteaandasitdown. It was only a matter of time before somebody typed it into their browser.. Hoorah! Right I'm off down the pub.. |
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Maddalena Feliciello |
My dearest Nicey,
my regards to you and The Wife plus a brief explanation that the Xanthan gum replaces the gluten missing as a result using the suggested flours. Wheat flour has been such a successful crop because of the elasticity and bonding this protein imparts to dough. Unfortunately there are some who have an intolerance or true allergy (Coeliacs) to the peptides it produces.
Hence the flour substitution plus Xanthan gum as a bonding agent and stabiliser. Without it the biscuits or any baking made this way will fall apart or not rise as well.
Sainsburys' now stock it !
NB: Sunny Delight is the Devils' Urine!...True
Love
M |
Nicey replies: Yay, you know you have found a serious biscuit oriented web site when discussions turn to Biochemistry. |
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A T Lewney |
Dear nicey,
i like to cook, and i like to bake, biscuits and cakes (tho really im crap at anything thats not sponge, but thats ok, cause i dont like fruity cake anyway much) but ive never come accross xanthan gum, can i ask you or her or whoever, what it is and can i get it in my local londis/spar/moronisons etc? and whats it used for other than the recipe provided, it all sounds very exotic
cheers
Al
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Nicey replies: Good question. Stuff beginning with X is rocket science by definition. I have never seen Xanthan gum for sale, but I have seen it in stuff, Sunny Delight for instance as you might expect contains it (I once read the ingredients of Sunny Delight to try and figure out if it was indeed as sinister as it appears to be). Whether or not they simply added it because it begins with X and they were working through the alphabet in some kind of sick ingredient stunt or maybe it is to do with 'mouth feel' which I think is the term for industrial chemists would use when building vats of Sunny Delight. Maybe it is part of the emulsification of the vegetable oil in the solution of sugar, and chemicals which is central to the production of Sunny Delight. Perhaps it is a by product of the production of Sunny Delight, which spontaneously gives rise to stuff that begins with X, and Sunny Delight itself is presumably a by product of detergent manufacturing.
You could try Holland and Barrett. |
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Barry Newman
Tim Tam vs Penguin Review |
Nicey, you are a gentleman and no mistake to ascribe so many virtues to the Tim Tam, however we New Zealanders, living as we do in constant biscuit imperialism directed at us from the other side of the Tasman sea, know all about the shortcomings of Australian products which are continually foisted on to our shelves to replace superior local and British products. The Australians are even extending their usual cultural rapine to claim that fine original New Zealand products, such as the Anzac biscuit, the Pavlova and Hokey-Pokey ice cream are their own! We are quite content for them to claim Rolf Harris, but wish them to own up to their greedy colonisation of talent and inspiration. However, it was nice to see your tongue firmly in your cheek when you claimed to be aware of modest Australians. Cheers, Barry Newman |
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Liza |
Dear Nicey,
Something has been bothering me for quite some time now, and you seem like the right chap to ask; the Claire Raynor of biscuits if you will. Why is it that Ginger Nuts are called Ginger Nuts? They clearly contain no nuts, the only other conclusion I can draw is that the name is communicating a crrrrrazy enthusiasm for the ginger flavour - I hope you will not confirm these fears as it's so crap I feel it will dint my enthisiasm for the aforementioned biscuit.
Many thanks.
Liza |
Nicey replies: Liza,
Thank you for your mail, unfortunately I can offer no explanation other than the one I am about to make up. The gingernut is so called because its hard like a nut, and you sort of have to crack them to eat them like nuts. We have been eating lots of Gingernuts recently and I was waiting to answer your mail until I felt I had eaten enough of them to give you a really good answer. |
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