Top 8: Breaktime bliss with these shop-bought biscuits
For this Top 8, we have hunted down the best of the best, seeking a decent coating of chocolate covering a light, crunchy biscuit.
I was told: “Pick up a packet of biscuits on the way home. It’s Friday, and we deserve a treat.”
It’s hard to beat a good chocolate biscuit to end a meal or as a dunker. Dip into hot tea or coffee for three seconds and lick half the chocolate off before biting into it. A blissful experience.
For this Top 8, we have hunted down the best of the best, seeking a decent coating of chocolate covering a light, crunchy biscuit.
Cost-saving palm oil is used in all but two of our final selection — one commendably from a sustainable source.
It was good to see asterisks highlighting the chocolate ingredients that originated in Certified Rainforest Alliance farms on some packs.
If we make our own delicious biscuits and add nuts, seeds and oats, we add protein to keep hunger away while avoiding additives and oils.
Try these: Mix together 200g butter (soft), 200g brown sugar, 350g plain flour, 50g oatmeal, 1 egg, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 dessertspoon each any nuts, crushed, and/or seeds.
Roll out on a floured board to the thickness of a 50c piece. Cut into rounds, and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 180C for 10 minutes until golden. C
ool before dipping in 125g melted dark or milk chocolate mixed with a teaspoon of grapeseed or sunflower oil (for a glossy finish). Dry on a wire rack.
This pack of nine dark chocolate and ginger biscuits was the winner.
The thick 61% coating of chocolate (48% cocoa solids) is delicious.
A good kick of ginger from 3% stem ginger pieces and ground ginger is vibrant and interesting, and the crunch is perfect. A substantial, satisfying oat chocolate biscuit.
- Score: 10
Nine biscuits have a decent 41% plain chocolate with 35% cocoa solids (low for dark chocolate) and 1.4% ground ginger which gives the crunchy biscuit a lift.
Also available in milk chocolate, the blend here of dark chocolate and ginger is very good.
The palm oil here is certified as sustainable.
- Score: 9.25
With 88% milk chocolate, there’s a delicious, creamy chocolatiness to these five two-finger wrapped wafers.
Rice flour, potato starch and high-protein Teff flour and soya flour keep them gluten-free.
Coconut oil and egg yolk moisten the biscuits. Worth the price considering that this is one of only two biscuits in our selection without palm oil.
Liked by tasters. Made in the EU for this Irish company.
- Score: 9
Eight biscuits have a decent 42% amount of chocolate coating with 32% cocoa solids, as well as plenty of chocolate throughout, including white chocolate chunks.
Overall the biscuits have a good, satisfying crunch. Made in Ireland.
- Score: 9
Nine biscuits are nicely buttery and crunchy, with a good 63% dark chocolate on top.
No palm oil, instead butter oil in the biscuit. (The Lidl version with 50% chocolate solids, is much the same, €1.29 for 125g.)
Popular with tasters.
- Score: 8.75
Six individually wrapped 22g biscuits.
Coating these mallow filled ginger biscuits with 28% cocoa solids chocolate has made them more delicious, but older tasters remember them being without chocolate, higher and more spongy, perhaps with more ginger.
However, the chocolate is good enough to make these the biscuits that several tasters, young and old, often have as a treat.
- Score: 8.5
We compared these fingers with Cadburys Dairy Milk (114g €2.39) to see if more than double the price difference was worth it.
Both have 48% chocolate coating (with neither giving cocoa solids percentage), a good, crunchy biscuit, and much the same ingredients, with tiny differences in the colour, sugars and fats.
We tested them blind and tasters could not tell the difference. They liked both.
- Score: 8
The eight-pack of shortcake biscuits, coated in 71% thick chocolate, have 35% cocoa solids (not high for dark chocolate) and make a satisfying, chunky bite.
The biscuit is crunchy, and the round, crimped edges are pretty for serving on an afternoon tea plate. Tasters enjoyed them.
- Score: 8.25
