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Your e-Mails

Hiromi Miura	Dear Nicey, Wifey, YMOS and Nanny Nicey I wonder if you still remember Dr.You, who is a great professor of Seoul University and has been appealing to Korean People to eat bananas and milk with "Orion choco-pie" biscuits (Korean style "Wagon wheel"). And finally, Orion released Dr.You branded cake in Korea: "Dr.You Dark Chocolate Cake". They come in boxes of 12 / 6 / 4 ,as far as I know. Mine ships twelve cakes individually wrapped. You may be able to see Dr.You's lovely silhouette printed on the outer box, and it makes me imagine that his cakes are baked in his laboratory rather than the Orion's biscuit factory. The cake is a maroon sponge with a layer of chocolate cream and crushed cashew nuts, and covered with a dark chocolate. So, now appears to be the era of dark chocolate as Nicey said that Nanny Nicey was saying so. ( Have Plain chocolate Hob Nobs come back on the shelf as Dark Chocolate Hob Nobs ?) In fact I prefer milk chocolate to dark chocolate. Hence, at first I thought that I would have chosen milk chocolate as the covering if I were Dr, You. However it seems to me that he made the proper choice. That's because I guess that the modest, moderate sweetness of the dark chocolate does not spoil the fine, natural taste of the sponge cake made with 100 % wholemeal. Here, Dr. You recommends us to eat oranges and yogurt with his cakes, but I feel sorry for not feeling like practicing his healthy menu so far. By the way, recently I obtained a "hard-to-find item": Dr.You stationery set! I don't like to buy family-sized biscuits, and I am not a lady who is lured by free gift to buy biscuits, either. However I ended up purchasing a party-sized "Orion Choco-pie" shipping 24 biscuits in order to get the free gift of Dr.You statinery set. It consists of an eraser, two pencils, a mechanical pencil, a ruler and a pack of mechanical pencil leads. Now, Dr.You branded "savoury biscuit", "rice chip", "nutrition bar" and "cereal bar" are also available in Korea. I hope Dr. You will initiate his sweet biscuit project as soon as possible. Sincerely, Hiromi Miura (Seoul Korea)
	Nicey replies: Hello Hiromi, I think any of us would have bought 24 choco-pies to get our hands on a genuine Dr You stationery set, so don't feel bad about that. I haven't spotted Dark Chocolate Hobnobs as yet I'm sure we'll see them soon though. I think also we can see Dr You's basic plan, it involves fruit, dairy products and chocolate cakes. I hope he surprises us next time round with some strange combinations maybe involving fish or cabbage.
Hiromi Miura	Dear Nicey,Wifey and YMOS On Wednesday afternoon, my husband and I came back to Korea after staying for three nights and four days in our motherland, Japan. Sad to say, when we arrived at Haneda Airport(Tokyo), there was no lady with a green tea trolley to greet us, but Tokyo was so beautiful because the lovely pink-coloured cherry blossoms were in full bloom. In Tokyo, my husband seemed to be busy visiting several offices on business. As for me, I was busy dropping by corner shops enjoying biscuit hunting, as you guess. And we flew back to Korea with a lot of biscuits I had gained in Tokyo, including a box of twenty "Black Thunder" biscuits, which are one of my favourite Japanese biscuits. Well, I am a lady who love inexpensive,mass-produced biscuits that are available at corner shops and common supermarkets. However, in remembrance of our brief retro life in Tokyo, I ventured to try to buy four extravagant biscuits at WEST shop. The WEST shop is a confectioner well-known for its even finer and high end biscuits in Japan. Actually, even a single biscuit cost me at 168JPY (about 0.82GBP / 1.64USD). Interestingly, the confectioner calls its biscuits "Dry Cake", while it calls its fresh cakes (such as cheesecake, sponge cake covered with whipped cream and cream puff) just "Cake". And it is fact that those 4 "Dry Cake" biscuits I bought were drier than Tunnock teacake and Jaffa Cake. Anyway, I am very happy that I was able to get such gems of biscuits as well as common biscuits in Japan. By the way, what lets me down is that I was not able to discover a gem of contemporary literature: Japanese version of NCOTAASD book in Japan. It seemed to me that your Japanese book has not been released in Japan, yet. I do hope I will get it next time we fly to Japan. Sincerely, Hiromi Miura (Seoul Korea)
	Nicey replies: Hello Hiromi, It sounds like you had a lovely time back in Tokyo, even if you didn't get your cup of green tea at the airport.. Of course the main reason for our book being published in Japanese is so that you can read it. I've pointed this out at length to all concerned. Fingers crossed that you'll find it next time. We have cherry trees all along our road, which have just began to blossom too. Each year they produce masses of black cherries most of which are eaten by birds or fall on to the road. This year Wifey plans to ask permission to grab a few pounds of them and turn them into her new found best drink ever, Cherry flavoured Vodka. NCOTAASD ISP Dr Borrill did this with his cherries and worked very well indeed.
Nicky Bramley Ginger Nut Review	Nicey, Wifey, YMOS, Two trips down memory lane after reading your site this morning: Hiromi Miura's description of her biscuit-cake brought wonderful memories flooding back of my early courting days 25 years ago, when my Geordie boyfriend's mother used to make a very similar concoction out of ginger biscuits and a powdered fake whipping cream that you added to milk - neither I nor my Geordie (now) husband can remember the name of the weird stuff that encased the ginger biscuits. My (now) mother-in-law's other two puddings were arctic roll with evaporated milk, and tinned fruit salad with the very same evaporated milk. Culinary madness. More nostalgia when I saw that you'd made welsh cakes. As my mother is Welsh I know that one welsh cake is never enough, and they definitely taste better with a big slather of butter on top, so I fear for your diet … If you ever need help to finish off a big pile of just-off-the-griddle welsh cakes, I'd be very happy to oblige. Nicky
	Nicey replies: Morning Nicky, I think the stuff was called Instant Whip, which must have harnessed the same sort of alchemy as Angel Delight to turn base cold milk into puddings, using nothing more than a whisk. We shouldn't forget Sue's original message that prompted all this Welsh cake making.
Hiromi Miura	Dear Nicey,Wifey and YMOS It seems to me that "whether biscuit or cake" is still arguable topic in the U.K. And I wonder if the "Biscuit-cake" is popular in many other countries outside Japan. The "Biscuit-cake" is a familiar as a simple, easy, safe but delicious "home-made" cake suitable for beginners in Japan. The cake doesn't need the oven. I'm sorry if you have already known , but I would like to try to introduce the "Biscuit cake", here. (INGREDIENT) * Rich tea/Marie type biscuits * whipped cream added sugar ( Luckily,ready-made whipped cream is available at my local E-mart in Korea) * strong brewed coffee (or milk), room temperature (DIRECTIONS) #1 Dunk the both faces of a biscuit lightly in coffee (or milk). (Be careful not to make it too moist, please!) #2 Spread some whipped cream on top of the biscuit. #3 Continue piling with slightly moist biscuit and whipped cream alternately as much as you like, finishing with the biscuit. #4 Fill the gap between biscuits and spread on top with cream, stylishly. (If you prefer a "low-calorie" cake, you can skip #4.) #5 Cover the yummy tower with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least three hours until the biscuits successfully change into a soft moist texture like a sponge cake thanks to the whipped cream. #6 Adorn with your favourite fruit before serving. If you create your cake longer like a log and lay it and then spread cream all over it, I think that your cake can be something like a Buche de Noel. To tell the truth, I have never baked even home-made biscuits and I know that my home-made "biscuit-cake" is extremely out of touch with elegance. However, it was enjoyable for me to fix this cake. I hope many people will enjoy making your own "Biscuit-cake". By the way, as much as we the Japanese call the Biscuit-cake "cake", some people outside Japan may consider it "biscuit". How do you feel about that, Nicey? Cordially, Hiromi Miura (seoul Korea)
	Nicey replies: Dear Hiromi, I think that biscuits can be ingredients in cakes, as the digestive biscuit and ginger nut often form the base for Cheesecakes. So biscuits are quite prepared for this treatment. I don't think it can go the other way though. Perhaps the closest is the sponge fingers that get used in desserts which are very dry and brittle which have almost entered a state where by they could be used as biscuits. Even so that is no the same thing as smashing them up or treating them with a solution that would turn them into biscuits. Perhaps some of the people outside of Japan should think about that, although you might have to do the translation again. P.S. I like the strawberry on top, very tempting.
Hiromi Miura	Hello, Nicey,wifey and YMOS. I have known that some NCOTAASD.com fans were missing the "Play Box" biscuit. I love its lovely biscuit tin thatＩwas able to see in your Paleolithic Biscuits section. I wish I could see the biscuits themselves hidden in the tin...... The lovely tin shipped square biscuits ,didn't it ? Well,recently, I found an uncommon type of square shaped biscuit at my local shop in Seoul Korea. It is a "Hoo-gam" biscuit, which was released into the Korean market by CROWN on October yesteryear. (It is manufactured by Dong Guan Kam Tai in China) We can see a description of "Potato Biscuit" on the outer box. So, here, 7 % of potato are used as one of ingredients. This potato biscuit comes in a purple box with a drawer. On sliding over the drawer, inside are six individual portion packs including five square biscuits. The biscuit is super-slim at 1.3mm thick. Its thinness and smell look like a popular potato crisp that comes in a tublar can. It tastes slightly sweet and slightly salty with an aftertaste like that of the potato crisps I have had. Unlike usual potato crisps who have curved oval faces, this "Hoo-gam" biscuits have flat square faces. Anyway, this potato biscuit is really unique with the subtle taste, textute and looks for a biscuit. So, I feellike doubting if we may call it a biscuit. However, it will be a biscuit as CROWN says so. I believe that CROWN must be a reliable confectionery. Actually, the "Hoo-gam" biscuit is not as crisp as common potato crisps. I guess that those individual packages are done so that even once you open you CAN stop! And I'm not sure what caused the baker to pop such an idea of the potato crisp-like biscuit. But I imagine that a fluffy thin-sliced potato may have suggested to the manufacturer that he cook the 1.3mm-thick-potato into a potato biscuit instead of a potato snack. So, an another description on the outer box says like this; "A slender potato proposes." By the way, I hear that the U.K. has a great number of potato lovers as well as biscuits lovers. Has your country had a potato biscuit, yet? Thank you for reading. Hiromi Miura (Seoul Korea)
	Nicey replies: Hello Hiromi, Yes Playbox biscuits were square and very much missed by many NCOTAASD readers as are Iced biscuits in general. Your Potato biscuits sound like they would make better companions to cold glasses of beer than hot cups of tea. Certainly the only products that I know of in the UK that are comparable in recipe would be savoury snacks rather sweet or even savoury biscuits. With Wifey being Irish we do have extensive potato experience in the NCOTAASD ranks. Indeed Granda Wifey is basically powered by potatoes, boiled floury ones. These are required with virtually every meal, (it used to be every meal but he has become slightly more liberal in past years). Another Irish staple is potato bread which includes some mashed potato in it. Looking more like a thick heavy square pancake rather than a loaf, they are usually fried with bacon or sausages and eaten for breakfast. We also hear that the Japanese version of our book is at long last to be released in Japan this month, and we hope to have our copy soon.
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