Biscuit Blog:Tesco Spiced Stem Ginger Cookies

Tesco Spiced Stem Ginger Cookies

I suppose it is natural that with summer here I am eating fewer biscuits.  I am aiming still to review at least two types per month.  It is now easier to get to some different supermarkets in my neighbourhood now that the long-term road works have come to an end.  These are a new biscuit from Tesco.  They are a little soft to my taste, but I guess that is signalled by them being called 'cookies' rather than 'biscuits'.  There seems to be a growing, unwritten consensus, that the US term cookie refers to a biscuit that is deeper, usually has something in it like chocolate chips or dried fruit and maybe soft; certainly lacking a snap.

The biscuits are not bad but not brilliant, lacking the 'fire' I seek from a stem ginger biscuit, indeed even from the best ginger nut biscuits.  The biscuit itself has quite a bland flavour.  There is some flavour from the chunks of ginger, but these are not numerous and lack the chewiness I expect.  This is a good standard biscuit for a tea break, but when you are buying something with only 10 in the pack and with this kind of packaging, you are expecting something more flavoursome and overall better, hence this one gets marked down for raising and then not fulfilling expectations.

Rating:
*****

Biscuit Blog: Walkers Stem Ginger

Walkers Stem Ginger

I have been rather naughty in this posting by stepping outside the biscuits which you can buy easily from supermarkets.  These biscuits are only available through caterers and I imagine most people will have only come across them in their workplace.  The reason why I have included them is as a counter-balance to my disappointment over the Deluxe Stem Ginger biscuits that I reviewed earlier this month: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/biscuit-blog-deluxe-stem-ginger-butter.html

The Walkers version does not aim to be a butter biscuit and lacks the creaminess even of the Lidl Deluxe version.  However, there is a good snap to biting these, they are not powdery nor do they break away.  There is not a rich flavour to the biscuit itself, hence the 4-star rating, but flavour is left to the stem ginger in the biscuit.  These pieces have a nice chewiness to them without tasting overly crystalised.  Lidl could easily produce a biscuit as good as these, especially for the Deluxe range.  That is why I have included this one here to show what is feasible with stem ginger.

Rating:
*****

Biscuit Blog: Deluxe Stem Ginger butter biscuits

Deluxe Stem Ginger

These were another Lidl purchase.  You can tell the Deluxe biscuits as they come in vertical boxes.  These for some reason hint at being Scottish with the saltire flag on the cover.  On the positive side they do have decent chunks of ginger in them not too crystalised in nature, though the flavour is not as clear in these than in some even cheap stem ginger biscuits I have tried.  There is a buttery flavour but it is not as rich as I would have liked.  The biscuits break up in the mouth in an unsatisfactory way, neither melting in the mouth as you might expect with a butter biscuit and yet not being crunchy either, it is almost as if they break into chunks; perhaps this is because of the disruption to the structure of the biscuit caused by the insertion of the ginger.

These make a nice change from ginger 'nuts' but I feel that they need work.  I would give them a 3-star rating except for the fact that they are portrayed as 'de luxe' in nature and to really qualify for such a status they would need to be much better.

Rating:
*****