Biscuit Blog: Crawford's Ginger Nuts

Crawford's Ginger Nuts

I must say that these do come in a very long packet and while they may cost more than supermarket own brands they are decent value for what you get.  Interesting the first flavour you get when you bite into them is almost orangey,  It is not unpleasant.  The snap is of a medium strength, not as strong as you often find with Ginger Nuts but certainly well away from crumbling to powder as happened on some poor quality ones.  One problem is that the ginger flavour is slow to develop and I had to eat four before I got that on my tongue.  I did find these biscuits moreish, but I think that is in part due to the time needed to build up the flavour on my tongue.  I wonder if that is intentional on the part of the makers.  They could be improved with more gingeriness going on right from the start.

Rating:
*****

P.P.
Looking back over the biscuits I have reviewed since this time last year, it is interesting to see those which have attracted the most and least attention.  The clear stand-out biscuit for viewing by readers is the Sondey Butter Rings, despite me scoring them only 2 stars back in March:

http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/biscuit-blog-sondey-butter-rings.html 

The ones which have attracted least attention from readers are the Lotus Speculoos biscuits, I reviewed a year ago, despite me giving them 5 stars.  This maybe because they were on the end of my first biscuit blog entry and there is stuff about vloggers getting book contracts to start with.

http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/biscuit-blog-lotus-speculoos-biscuits.html

It will be interesting to see what attracts most interest next year and indeed whether any new kinds of biscuits are on the market.  Saying that I still have work to do getting through Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Aldi and if I can find one somewhere, Morrisons.

Biscuit Blog: Crawford's Shortcake

Crawford's Shortcake biscuits

It is important to distinguish shortcake biscuits from shortbread biscuits.  Shortcake biscuits are also pale in colour but have far more of a snap than shortbread which is typically very crumbly.  Shortcake have far less sugar on them, though as I have noted before the amount of sugar dusted on shortbread seems to be decreasing.  Shortcake biscuits have a less creamy taste than the shortbread but are have a rich flavour that is both different from a rich tea and from a malted milk; they are thicker than both of these.  When I was a boy these were popularly known as 'tractor biscuits' because the diagonal shape about the rim of the biscuits look like the patterns left in the mud by tractor tyres when they have been driven along an unsurfaced road.

These shortcakes from Crawfords are not bad.  They lack moreishness and unfortunately have a bit of a 'burn' in the taste which can sometimes happen with cheap versions of supposedly creamy biscuits, most often occurring in malted milks, though not among the recent batch I have sampled.  There is a snap to these but almost a sour aftertaste which feels wrong.  It is almost as if they have gone too far in trying to get the shortcake flavour.  However, unlike some biscuits I have tried recently, they actually taste along the lines of what they are supposed to be.

Rating:

*****