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 |
Chris
Malted Milk Review |
Nicey,
I would like to add my voice to the growing mass of dedicated Malted Milk followers, chocolate or otherwise. I echo the comments of James Coghlan that Sainsbury's have to stock these biscuits on the most remote, highest and out-of-the-way selves. This does give the impression that by finding, buying and then eating the biscuits, one has been initiated into a secret and ancient club. Which of course, one has.
I have tried to convert my girlfriend to the quality of the Malked Milk, but she remains a firm cake lover.
Chris |
Nicey replies: Yes the Malted Milk is utterly fabulous isn't it, and before anybody else asks which firm cakes does she like? |
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Robert Green |
Hi there,
As a novice to the world of biscuits I am in urgent need of some guidance.
Yesterday at work I availed myself of a cup of coffee and pack of biscuits (Cadbury snack shortcakes to be precise) from our vending machine. Upon retuning to my desk I proceeded to unwrap the biscuits, dunk and taste. Very satisfying.... or so I thought. Little did I realise that I was under the ever watchful eye of my collegues who, upon seeing my actions gave a gasp of shock and disbelief.
What could be wrong with my quite normal biscuit behaviour you may well ask as indeed I did myself. It seems that the schoolboy error lay in the fact that my biscuits were chocolate covered.
Please do not be too hasty to judge. In view of this incident I would be most obliged for some advice. Is dunking chocolate covered biscuits breaking some kind of tea break etiquette or unspoken biscuit rule?
Yours Sincerely
Rob
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Nicey replies: Rob,
The dunking of chocolate biscuits has long been frowned upon as poor manners, however, in recent years it has begun to become more socially acceptable. Just recently as reported in our last newsletter the McVitie's Chocolate Caramel came tops in poll of over 350,000 people. Personally I think its messy and a bit futile in the case of entirely coated biscuits.
In you specific case I would think your colleague would be better advised to direct his energies to worrying about the fact that you to have to drink stuff made by a vending machine. |
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Leo
Graham cracker Review |
Hi Nicey
I just finished reading your Graham cracker page. Add me to the list of Americans who had no idea what a Digestive was [until I read about it on your web site] but had known about Graham crackers for well over half a century. Graham crackers were a staple of my youthful diet and a treat through middle years and into my 'rusty' years. They are also a staple for my grand kids. They are the ever-ready between meal snack which keeps little ones quiet.
Graham crackers come in a couple varieties that I know of. Plain, as pictured on your web page, and with a cinnamon-sugar topping on one side. I personally prefer the cinnamon-sugar ones. I have not seen the apple and chocolate ones you mention... but I have never looked for them either.
Graham crackers are one of the three ingredients of Smores, or S'mores. Smores is a contraction of the words some more, as in I want s-more. Smores are almost a 'necessity' while sitting around the evening campfire when camping.
Do a web search for more Smores web pages.
While the photo [on your web page] of the Nabisco Grahams box shows jam on a Graham cracker, I do not recall ever seeing anyone eating that combination.
Graham crackers make a good topping when squished in the hand and sprinkled over a bowl of ice cream. They add a nice random crunchiness to the ice cream and a flavor contrast of grain to milk product.
My favorite topping for Graham crackers is about an equal mix of peanut butter and honey. A small round bottom tea cup or coffee cup makes a nice mixing container. I take a few knife fulls of peanut butter and scrape it into the cup by dragging the knife blade across the cup lip. Alternately, you can put a spoon full in the cup, but then you wind up using your finger to scrape the peanut butter out of the spoon, and then the spoon to scrape off your finger. Once the peanut butter is in the cup, I add honey using my eyeball to 'measure' when there is about an equal amount of peanut butter and honey. Then stir it with the knife until it is well blended. You can then add more of either ingredient to suit your taste, or make the consistency spreadable. Once mixed, it is spread atop a Graham cracker. I usually have milk with it, but tea or coffee would do as well... depending on your personal preference. Smooth peanut butter works better for spreading. No peanut pieces for the spreading knife to bounce over. But crunchy peanut butter will work too... if you like the spread layer thicker.
Both my kids and grand kids like to dunk Graham crackers in a glass of milk or a cup of hot chocolate.
I followed a link from Andy Edward's Music web site to visit your web site.
Curiosity question: What kind of tea do you Brits prefer? Unless I am mistaken, if one orders 'tea' at a restaurant here in the US, you will get black pekoe as the 'standard tea'. However many places now bring a bread basket style container with an assortment to choose from. Just curious if you ordered a 'cup of tea', what kind it would be. Is there a 'standard tea' which is usually served in the UK?
Warm regards
Leo
Spokane Washington USA |
Nicey replies: Hi Leo,
Thanks for that very informative mail about Graham Crackers. We had smores explained to us the other evening by an American girl, whilst we were down in London for the evening. We repaid her kindness by forcing her to eat a several things she had never encountered before including Jaffa Cakes and Tunnocks Wafers. She seemed to enjoy it although she couldn't finish the Tunnocks so I made her wrap it up again and pop it in her bag so she could have it in the morning.
As to what tea we drink, well that really comes down to brands, but you are essentially right about it being standard tea. All the leading everyday teas are blends of various black teas from India, Sri Lanka and Kenya. These are carefully blended to give each brand its own particular taste, although they are all broadly similar. The leading brands are Tetley, PG Tips, TyPhoo, Yorkshire Tea and so forth. The supermarket chains also have their own blends with Sainsbury's and the Coop both being highly regarded. As you probably know all our teas are designed for drinking with milk. I suppose that if you mixed up some Celyon, Assam and Kenyan teas in the right proportions you could create something fairly close to any of our well known brands. The trick is to blend the tea to suit the water. It was common to ship water from Manchester to the tea plantations in India so the tea could be blended correctly before it ever left there.
If you ever visit the UK you simply just have to ask for 'tea' and that's what you'll get. A couple of Digestives wouldn't go a miss either. |
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Boots
Malted Milk Review |
Hi,
I'd just like to put a word in for the Chocolate Malted Milk. Biscuit to the Gods. The only problem with them though is the wrapping. To open it you have to pull the tab which is at least 5 or 6 biscuits down the pack. This forces one to eat all the biscuits above that line and 4 more below to gain an adequate seal with the wrapping for stowage in my biccie tin. Not that it stays in the tin for long. If they ever make it there at all. Thats reserved for the wifeys 'Lincolns'. A biscuit so dreadful that I find it quite absurd that someone went to all that trouble to make a rubbish biscuit.
Thank you for the articles on kettles. Please can you warn people to not heat their cold tea in the microwave. You may, like I did, leave the spoon in. Oh, The horror....
Boots |
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Carola Langford
Lidl's Choco Softies Review |
Hi
Well, I've been eating these for nearly 50 years!
The Dickmann quite rightly used to/is still called Negerkuss or Mohrenkopf (Negro's head), not very PC!
They used to be (and in some places are still) freshly made by bakers; sometimes you see them with a sprinkling of coconut on the chocolate. And you can get them with white chocolate and milk chocolate. But the proper ones have a dark chocolate covering, and are big.
When I was a kid in Germany they were not for eating but we'd squash them into some unsuspecting victim's face. All German kids love them.
When I first moved to the UK you could not buy them here, and one year my sister took pity and posted a box to me - unfortunately this was in the pre-bubble wrap days. I'll admit that I was so desperate that I used a teaspoon to scrape the remains out of the box. Sad or what?!
The proper way to eat them is to carefully peel off the chocolate covering, eat that first, and then slowly eat the white stuff. The wafer is just a "tray" and can be discarded.
But they are definitely not to be eaten with a cup of tea! Best eaten on your own, the whole box. Guten Appetit ! |
Nicey replies: Yes I had understood that they changed the name. It sounds like a very similar operation to eating a chocolate teacake.
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