Type | Biscuit |
---|---|
Place of origin | United Kingdom |
Main ingredients | Biscuits, buttercream (traditionally vanilla) |
A custard cream is a type of sandwich biscuit popular in the British Isles filled with a creamy, custard-flavoured centre. Traditionally, the filling was buttercream (which is still used in most home-made recipes) but nowadays cheaper fats have replaced butter in mass-produced biscuits. The filling tastes of vanilla and as such is more akin to the taste of custard made with custard powder than egg custard. It is believed that the custard cream biscuit originated in Britain in 1908. [1] Usually, they have an elaborate baroque design stamped onto them, originating in the Victorian era and representing ferns. [2]
Some British and Irish supermarkets produce their own brand versions, with variations including lemon, orange, chocolate, strawberry, coffee, tangerine, rhubarb & custard and coconut flavours. There is a digestive cream version available, in which the biscuit is replaced with a digestive biscuit. In a 2007 poll of 7,000 Britons, 9 out of 10 voted custard creams to be their favourite biscuit. [2] In 2009 it was ranked the eighth most popular biscuit in the UK to dunk into tea. [3] In the same year, a study by Mindlab International listed custard creams as the most likely biscuit to cause injury or harm, scoring a so-called "risk rating" of 5.64. [4] Custard creams featured in the 2022 film Thirteen Lives , as the favourite snack of British cave rescuers Rick Stanton and John Volanthen. [5]
A cookie or biscuit is a baked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat, and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, or nuts.
Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as cake, biscuit, ice cream and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. Some cultures sweeten foods that are more commonly savory to create desserts. In some parts of the world there is no tradition of a dessert course to conclude a meal.
Trifle is a layered dessert of English origin. The usual ingredients are a thin layer of sponge fingers or sponge cake soaked in sherry or another fortified wine, a fruit element, custard and whipped cream layered in that order in a glass dish. The contents of a trifle are highly variable and many varieties exist, some forgoing fruit entirely and instead using other ingredients, such as chocolate, coffee or vanilla. The fruit and sponge layers may be suspended in fruit-flavoured jelly, and these ingredients are usually arranged to produce three or four layers. The assembled dessert can be topped with whipped cream or, more traditionally, syllabub.
Chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, also known as chocolate teacakes, are confections consisting of a biscuit base topped with marshmallow-like filling and then coated in a hard shell of chocolate. They were invented in Denmark in the 19th century and later also produced and distributed by Viau in Montreal as early as 1901. Numerous varieties exist, with regional variations in recipes. Some variants of these confections have previously been known in many countries by names comprising equivalents of the English word negro.
A biscuit, in most English speaking countries, is a flour-based baked and shaped food product. Biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers. Types of biscuit include sandwich biscuits, digestive biscuits, ginger biscuits, shortbread biscuits, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, Anzac biscuits, biscotti, and speculaas.
A digestive biscuit, sometimes described as a sweet-meal biscuit, is a semi-sweet biscuit that originated in Scotland. The digestive was first developed in 1839 by two Scottish doctors to aid digestion. The term digestive is derived from the belief that they had antacid properties around the time the biscuit was first introduced due to the use of sodium bicarbonate as an ingredient. Historically, some producers used diastatic malt extract to "digest" some of the starch that existed in flour prior to baking.
Cheesecake is a dessert made with a soft fresh cheese, eggs, and sugar. It may have a crust or base made from crushed cookies, graham crackers, pastry, or sometimes sponge cake. Cheesecake may be baked or unbaked, and is usually refrigerated.
Cadbury Dairy Milk is a British brand of milk chocolate manufactured by Cadbury. It was introduced in the United Kingdom in June 1905 and now consists of a number of products. Every product in the Dairy Milk line is made with exclusively milk chocolate. In 1928, Cadbury's introduced the "glass and a half" slogan to accompany the Dairy Milk chocolate bar, to advertise the bar's higher milk content.
McVitie's is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name derives from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie & Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St. Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888. The company also established one in Glasgow and two large manufacturing plants south of the border, in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, and Park Royal, London. There are seven McVitie's factories in the UK, with each producing a different types of biscuit; the Harlesden site in north-west London manufactures the chocolate digestives.
To dunk or to dip a biscuit or some other food, usually baked goods, means to submerge it into a drink, especially tea, coffee, or milk. Dunking releases more flavour from confections by dissolving the sugars, while also softening their texture. Dunking can be used to melt chocolate on biscuits to create a richer flavour.
The Bourbon is a sandwich biscuit consisting of two thin rectangular dark chocolate-flavoured biscuits with a chocolate buttercream filling.
Rich tea is a type of sweet biscuit; the ingredients generally include wheat flour, sugar, vegetable oil and malt extract. Originally called Tea Biscuits, they were developed in the 17th century in Yorkshire, England for the upper classes as a light snack between full-course meals. One of the best-selling biscuits in the British Isles, the biscuit is also popular in Malta and Cyprus. The plain flavour and consistency of rich tea makes them particularly suitable for dunking in tea and coffee.
A Swiss roll, jelly roll, roll cake, cream roll, roulade or Swiss log is a type of rolled sponge cake filled with whipped cream, jam, icing, or any type of filling. The origins of the term are unclear; in spite of the name "Swiss roll", the cake is believed to have originated elsewhere in Central Europe, possibly Austria or Slovenia. It appears to have been invented in the nineteenth century, along with Battenberg cake, doughnuts, and Victoria sponge. In the U.S., commercial snack-sized versions of the cake are sold with the brand names Ho Hos, Yodels, Swiss Cake Rolls, and others. A type of roll cake called Yule log is traditionally served at Christmas.
A gingersnap, ginger snap, ginger nut, or ginger biscuit is a biscuit flavored with ginger. Ginger snaps are flavored with powdered ginger and a variety of other spices, most commonly cinnamon, molasses and clove. There are many recipes. The brittle ginger nut style is a commercial version of the traditional fairings once made for market fairs now represented only by the Cornish fairing.
Arnott's Group is an Australian producer of biscuits and snack food. Founded in 1865 by William Arnott, they are the largest producer of biscuits in Australia and a subsidiary of KKR.
Hobnobs is the brand name of a commercial biscuit. They are made from rolled oats, are similar to a flapjack-digestive biscuit hybrid, and are among the most popular British and Irish biscuits. McVitie's launched Hobnobs in 1985 and a milk chocolate variant in 1987. The plain variety is manufactured at Tollcross factory in Glasgow, and the chocolate variety is made at the Harlesden factory in north-west London.
A Marie biscuit is a type of biscuit similar to a rich tea biscuit. It is also known as María, Mariebon and Marietta, amongst other names.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chocolate:
Sponge cake is a light cake made with eggs, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most of them do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain. The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first non-yeasted cakes, and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in a book by the English poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman (1615). Still, the cake was much more like a cracker: thin and crispy. Sponge cakes became the cake recognised today when bakers started using beaten eggs as a rising agent in the mid-18th century. The Victorian creation of baking powder by English food manufacturer Alfred Bird in 1843 allowed the addition of butter to the traditional sponge recipe, resulting in the creation of the Victoria sponge. Cakes are available in many flavours and have many recipes as well. Sponge cakes have become snack cakes via the Twinkie.
A sandwich cookie, also known as a sandwich biscuit, is a type of cookie made from two thin cookies or medium cookies with a filling between them. Many types of fillings are used, such as cream, ganache, buttercream, chocolate, cream cheese, jam, peanut butter, lemon curd, or ice cream.