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 |
Sue Northcott |
Hi Nicey,
As a family man can you please help out an expectant father? In order to keep his wife happy in her current, interesting, condition he needs a supply of wafer biscuits filled with orange cream. We've found the Tunnock's Florida ones in your reviews, but the ones he needs are chocolate free.
The biscuit experts on the team haven't been much help, so we are turning to you, the biscuit meister.
Any ideas?
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Nicey replies: Very tricky Sue as you know Orange Cream is a difficult thing to find in most biscuits, but take chocolate out of the equation its like hens teeth.
OP just down the road from you do an uncovered Lemon Wafer as their nearest.
Not sure if a trip to France to retrive La Paile D'Or would find an Orange version, I don't recall one and LU's websites are woeful so I can't tell from there.
I only had to go on one quest for food for Wifey, which involved digging up a stray and rather gnarled spinach plant that had established itself in the front garden and presenting it to her on toast. Relatively easy in comparison to this task. |
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Rosalind Levy
Custard Cream Review |
When I was treasurer of my union branch way back in the 1970s, one of my duties was to buy the tea and biscuits for the meetings. It was then that I discovered orange creams. These are very much like custard creams but with orange filling not vanilla. They are divine. Are they still for sale? It's a long time since I've seen them on a supermarket shelf. Perhaps an orange cream spotting competition with my grateful thanks as a reward?
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Nicey replies: Every so often we get a mail from somebody trying to track down some Orange Creams. The last ones I saw in the wild were in the biscuit aisle of an Iceland as part of a three pack of custard, orange and coconut creams. The Iceland in question has since been demolished and a whole new set of of shops built, so it was a while back.
I have seen various flavoured cream biscuits originating from Ireland, such as raspberry creams and these were made I think under the Bolands brand which was used by Jacobs. These could occasionally turn up in the UK in small grocers and the like. Since the acquisition of Jacobs in Ireland by Fruitfield in 2004 I'm not sure what has been happening with the Bolands brand, or products. However we have heard that the Irish have fixed their Club Milk back from the rubbish raft format adopted in 2001 to the proper sandwich format we all know and love, so they certainly seem like a force for good.
Yes I am aware that I have completely wandered off the point now. |
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Nik Whitehead
Garibaldi Review |
Far back in the dim and distant past (the late sixties and early seventies) I was in love with the most wonderful biscuit on Earth - the plain chocolate garibaldi. Now of course, the milk chocolate garibaldi was good, but the bitterness of the dark chocolate combined with the sweetness of the fruit made this, for me, the ultimate in 'sitting with my grandfather watching television' treats.
Sadly, I have not seen such delights for many years, although a friend of mine once presented me with a Christmas gift of several packets worth of garibaldi over which he had carefully spread melted chocolate.
Ah... those lost biscuits of the past... |
Nicey replies: Nick,
Yes our best information on the Chocolate Gariballdi is that it was probably made by the now defunct south London biscuit manufacturer Chiltonian biscuits. Not only were they able to cover some in chocolate but theirs were much more moist than today's Gariballdis. When ever I'm in the presence of one of the powerful people in the biscuit world I habitually put in a plea to bring back the Chocolate Gariballdi. So far there is no sign of this happening. |
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Simon Dolega-Ossowski |
Both me and my collegue Mr Nadar have long lamented the disappearance of the celebrated Lemon Puff, which I think was a Peak Freans product. The broad perforated rectangular glazed puff sandwich with its delicious lemon cream filling - a corner-stone of 70s and 80s biscuit tins - was a perfect foil to its heavier based chocolate based counterparts such as the Bourbon.
The Lemon Puff has resurfaced recently, as an inferior roundel I fear, reintroduced by the supermarkets, and it's not the same: we may have been duped about the shrinking size of a Wagon Wheel, but Rich Tea doesn't seem to have diminished in size one bit, and we cannot be fooled for a moment about the shape, and more generous proportions of the old rectangular Lemon Puff.
I await its appearence on your otherwise excellent website.
PS - have you any info on Kunzle Cakes?
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Nicey replies: Indeed as far as I recall the Lemon Puff was a Peek Frean biscuit and so its custodian-ship moved to Jacobs in due course. As I have often said I respected the lemon puff of old, despite not really liking it.. We had a couple attempts at reviewing the modern and inferior round ones but they were too grim.
As for Kunzle Cakes, I never had one but they sound amazing, there is a very good blog devoted to them.
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Geraldine McCathy
Garibaldi Review |
Hi there,
I found your site whilst looking for information on the Chiltonian Biscuit Factory in Hither Green, London. I worked there in the mid 1970's and I can assure (your correspondent) Kevin Sowerby, that I packed many, many garibaldi biscuits while I worked there.
They were just delicious and I have never tasted a garabaldi biscuit as good as them since those days...
We packed biscuits for Sainsburys, Peak Frean and many others at Chiltonian - there was also a broken biscuit shop where customers and staff could buy a huge bag of broken biscuits for 10p!...
I am sad to learn that the Chiltonian factory is to be converted into housing development.....
God bless all,
Geraldine |
Nicey replies: That's great to have the location of Sainsbury's wonderful 1970s Garibaldis tracked down. Presumably the much missed Chocolate version was made there too. I certainly remember a time when Garibaldis were a softer and the raisins a bit plumper, perhaps they were Chiltonian ones. Still it would be good to see if they could whack a bit of chocolate on a modern Gariabldi just to see what they came out like. |
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