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 |
Angie Reese |
Hi Folks
I've just discovered this website and would like to put in a plea for some plain chocolate biscuis. Penguins, Kit - Kats etc are all milk chocolate. What about us plain chocolate lovers? Doesn't anyone think of us?
As for making sure my mug isn't used by anyone else - I've got one with nifty 50 on. As no - one here would admit to being that age it's never used by others.
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Duncan Simpson
Tunnocks Tea Cake Review |
I was pleased to read your excellent reviews of the tunnocks teacake and caramel wafer. However, I wonder if you are aware of their latest offering, with teasingly limited availablility, dark chocolate versions of teacakes and caramel wafers. For fans of tunnocks who prefer their chocolate on the darker side, these really are a must-have biscuit to be sought out and snapped up.
I grew up in Hamilton, not far from Uddingston where the fabled teacake factory resides. I well remember the annual concert given to the Tunnocks staff by Earnock High School band on Uddingston town green. Oh, I've come over all reminicent now. THe same band used to play for the Phillips lightbulb factory in Hamilton, and I hope they still do. |
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Carol Swift
Tunnocks Tea Cake Review |
Please help! We are desperate to find out who makes chocolate teacakes with JAM. We are aware of the Tunnocks regular chocolate teacake but there is a version of this cake with jam available, we just can't find out the manufacturer's name. Can you help us?
Thanks in advance! |
Nicey replies: Thats no problem, you could try 'Lees' a Scottish based baker of tea cakes, or just good old 'Burtons'. |
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Martin the Muncher
Bourbon Review |
Dear Nicey,
First up, thanks for a most excellent site!
Reading your Bourbon review reminded me I hadn't tried my wife's favourite biscuit of the moment. As a preamble to this mini-review, I must point out that, being lactose and gluten intolerant presents her with quite a challenge in the biscuit munching department.
Anyway, the biscuit in mind is the 'Trufree Bourbon Biscuit', available in Holland & Barret, GnC, Sainsburys and other stockists of 'alternative' fare. These are labelled as wheat, gluten, milk and egg-free, so the Mrs has no problems consuming them in great quantity; vegetable fat and soya flour seem to be the main substituted ingredients. The question in my mind was how they compare to the real thing. Sadly, the shelves of our local Sainsbury only yielded their own inferior brand as a reference so my study will remain slightly flawed.
Well, putting aesthetics first, the Trufree biscuit is shaped exactly like the real thing, right down to the 'BOURBON' stamped onto each side of the sandwich, although the biscuit is only about 2/3 the size of the traditional variety. Colour wise, the biscuits are slightly lighter and the filling slightly darker. Experiment proved that it is perfectly possible to eat these in the deconstructionalist manner (i.e. separating the biscuit and filling layers for separate consumption), although the adhesion of the components is adequate for consuming whole.
The texture, while firm, was lighter and crumblier, although not so 'gritty': the Sainsbury traditional biscuit has a lot of sugar crystals embedded in the biscuit. The filling seems about the same, but I suspect a higher coccoa content. Taste-wise, there is actually little to choose. Due to the lightness of the flour component, the biscuit part seems sweeter, although not unpleasantly so. The filling tasted like (and probably is close to) real chocolate.
The one drawback is that soya flour seems not ideal for creating a dunking biscuit with the result that the test sample dissolved. These are definitely accompaniments to rather than integral components of the Sunday afternoon tea and sit-down.
All in all, then a pleasant little surprise and Mrs will be dismayed to find her stash of these biscuits dwindling fast.
Keep up the good work!
Yours,
Martin the Muncher. |
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John Murray |
Dear Nicey
Do you know if the Prince biscuit made by LU can be got in the UK? They?re round chocolate sandwich types. They come in cylindrical 330gm packets with a picture of some smiling kid prince in gumboots and a superman cape running healthily in front of a picture of the contents. He?s also embossed on each biscuit (not running, but looking like Henry VIII junior).Gout Chocolate, Partenaire Energie, it says, Cereales et lait.(sorry no accents available on this keyboard) But in spite of that I seek them out when in France as they are not too sweet, dunk well, and are very Moorish. And the chocolate filling seems to stay firm even in the heat of summer. They were on offer in triple packs in the Super-U this month but my wife wouldn?t allow me to get this as she?s gone onto a low carbohydrate diet. So I?m now almost through my souvenir of a delicious holiday.
There appear to be several varieties of them in French supermarkets: One has the filling divided- half is something whiteish, and there?s a strawberry one which doesn?t appeal at all. It wasn?t even in the triple special offer so can?t be all that popular.
Are they available in the UK? Or can anyone recommend a not-too-sweet chocolate alternative?
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Nicey replies: I know the biscuits you are referring to, we saw some the other week in an Auchan in Boulogne. They seem to be representative of a whole continental approach to round chocolate cream sandwich biscuits, we have had something very similar from Spain called a 'Principito'.
I've never seen Lu biscuits in any of the big stores, so I think you are probably best off working on a plan to convince your Wife of your legitimate right to by dodgy euro biccies for your next France trip. I find 'Oh they are are for the biscuit tin at work' seems to work well.
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