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 |
POST CTI Technical Support Team |
Dear Mr Nicey,
Inspired by your web site we have been busy rating a selection of doughnuts which can be enjoyed whilst having a nice cup of tea and a sit down. Our scientific analysis has helped us to avoid the disappointment of having a nice cup of tea and a sit down ruined by an under achieving doughnut. We would like to share our results with you and your readers.
Our team of highly qualified doughnut technicians have studiously evaluated each offering from the leading doughnut retailers, grading their experiences against a pre-defined set of criteria. We have used these results to determine the best doughnut overall and the best value for money doughnut. The winners of each category are as follows:
2004 Best Doughnut: Marks and Spencer
2004 Best Value for Money Doughnut: Morrisons (Pack of 5)
We expect the results to spark furious debate and we are quite prepared to re-evaluate any doughnuts if required (except Alldays).
Kind regards,
POST CTI Technical Support Team
Retailer | Date | Price (£) | Packaging | Jam Content | Jam Quality | Appearance | Coating Quality | Texture | Average | Total | Comments |
---|
Morrisons | 2/12/04 | 0.118 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 6.5 | 330.5 | Suitably impressed | Sainsbury's (Box of 10) | 20/7/04 | 0.099 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 5.3 | 323.2 | More bang for your buck | Tesco Metro (Bag of 5) | 7/7/04 | 0.116 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6.0 | 310.3 | Gobsmacked. | Asda (Bag of 5) | 8/7/04 | 0.112 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4.7 | 250.0 | Wow. | Safeway (Supermarket) | 1/7/04 | 0.1475 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 5.3 | 216.9 | Focussed on doughnut not packaging resulting in a first-class experience. | Safeway (Bag of 10) | 29/9/04 | 0.099 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3.5 | 212.1 | Average | Marks & Spencer | 18/6/04 | 0.25 | 9 | 10 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 8.5 | 204.0 | Sets the standard. Well done. | Co-Op | 25/6/04 | 0.127142857 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 3.3 | 157.3 | Cheap. | Safeway (Garage) | 16/7/04 | 0.1475 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3.7 | 149.2 | Let down. | Waitrose | 15/6/04 | 0.2425 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 8 | 5.5 | 136.1 | Needs twice as much Jam. Premium price for an average doughnut. | Tesco Metro (loose) | 30/6/04 | 0.3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2.7 | 53.3 | Disappointing. | Mary Rose Bakery (Alldays) | 21/7/04 | 0.345 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2.0 | 34.8 | Shocking |
|
Nicey replies: This is outstanding work of the highest level, we all owe you a debt of thanks. |
| |
Adrian Clarke |
Hi Nicey and tribe,
Perhaps one could point out to Mr. McGregor the number of people with nut allergies these days, and how dangerous they are. Presumably there are people with sugar and salt allergies. Let’s face it, what’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander, so lets not start preaching on ‘my lifestyle is better than yours’.
Chairs
Ade |
Nicey replies: Absolutely. I thought it would make an terrific futile gesture to put up an anti-biscuit message on the site, given that we virtually never get them. Plus its no secret that Jonathan Ross loves biscuits, its obvious really. |
| |
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.
|
| |
Malcolm Macgregor |
Most biscuits and cakes are full of fats, sugar and salt. These will kill you, eventually. I praise you for recommending a nice cup of tea and sit down both for health and pleasure reasons, but I would like to ask you to consider what might be a healthy snack to take with tea. My favourite, which I share with Jonathon Ross, is peanut butter and honey on wholewheat bread.
Nut fats are "good fats" and you can limit the honey to small amounts to keep sugar intake reasonable (plus there are useful vitamins and minerals in honey). Plus it tastes better than any naff biscuit, even an abbey crunch. |
Nicey replies: Thanks for your words of caution Malcolm on the health front.
Of course biscuit consumption in the UK per head has remained largely static over the last fifty years and on average is roughly two per person per day. As I'm sure you know there are many contributing factors to a rise in obesity in the Western world. The amount of salt, fat and sugar we consume as a nation in other processed foods and take aways has increased. Also peoples lifestyles at both work and home have become more sedentary.
This however does not apply to everybody. Here at NCOTAASD we always cook our own meals from fresh ingredients because that's what we like. We always advocate exercise, and a good brisk walk a couple of times a week works wonders. Singling out biscuits for scorn, is a bit simplistic to say the least. I don't believe that consuming them in moderation as part of a balanced diet is going to 'kill you', especially if you steer clear of the hydrogenated fat.
I too enjoy peanut butter on wholewheat bread but topped off with our own homemade green tomato chutney. |
| |
Jayne Sercombe |
Dear Nicey,
I have been pondering what makes up a nice place to sit down (outside of home). The following factors make it for me, I wonder what others think?
- Wooden chairs and tables- not plastic- yuck.
- Proper cake selection (with 2+ homemade biscuits)
- Warm and cosy
- Friendly and informal staff
- A choice that includes proper tea and not just
smelly stuff
- (A gamble here, I know) If they serve caffe latte
then I beg them not to serve it in a glass cup,
regardless of what they may or may not do in Italy.
My current favourite meeter of the above criteria is The Boston Tea Party in Bristol. Lovely place.
Love Jayne
|
Nicey replies: It's got to have enough room to swing a cat. I can't be doing with those places where you don't have enough elbow room to pour your tea. I like a few random or peculiar things scattered around which you can ponder on whilst drinking your tea. Such things as obscure farm/kitchen implements, or pictures of places a very long time ago when they looked different.
|
| |
|
|
|