Biscuit Blog: Asda Garibaldi biscuits

Asda Garibaldi biscuits

I shot these particular biscuits on a board for playing the Japanese game Go.  It rather gets abused in my house, often used as the base for bathroom scales in rooms where the floor is uneven.  However, given the wide diversity of length of biscuit packets and the size of biscuits even of the same type, I am wondering if I will used it more often so that you can see from the number of squares covered the scale of what I am showing.

I had not been to Asda for a while so when in there for a reason I have now forgotten, I thought it a good idea to pick up some of their standard biscuits in order to provide more comparators for the basic biscuit types common in the UK.  I started with Asda's Garibaldis.  One positive thing about these is that they are scored well.  Unlike most biscuits, Garibaldis are sold in strips which require the eater or the person filling the biscuit tin, to break them off.  It is unfortunately too common for Garibaldis to be scored poorly or for the biscuit to be too crumbly, so that breaking them off you end up with erratically sized biscuits and often too many wasted crumbs.  As you can see from above, these break very neatly.

I do expect a glaze on the top of my Garibaldis and that was missing from these.  In fact they are rather lacking in sweetness all round.  The raisins used are not particularly sweet.  The biscuit itself has a very dry flavour.  It has an appropriate snap when you bite into it, not crumbling away too much as can be a problem with Garibaldis.  There is some degree of moreishness but it is not that strong, I think because the actual biscuit is somehow plainer than the best Rich Teas and the sweetness is really lacking.

I would be tempted to add half-a-star if I could to the rating below, because Asda has got the scoring of these Garibaldis done very well, but overall it is not an appealing biscuit.

Rating:
*****

Biscuit Blog: Co-Operative Garibaldi Biscuits

Co-Operative Garibaldi Biscuits

While I have a co-op store close to where I live and a smaller one near where I work, I have only recently begun to explore their biscuits.  As pale blue seems to be becoming the universal colour for malted milk biscuits, purple appears to be the one adopted nowadays for Garibaldis, I imagine in reference to the raisins in them.  These Garibaldis are in a different league to the Tesco ones I tried last month, though it may still only be the Championship rather than the Premier League.  They are a little dry on the tongue.  However, they are deeper than the Tescos version and the raisins are thicker and while not overly sweet, are more flavoursome.  There is a slight glaze on these and some of the chewiness one expects from a Garibaldi.  I also found they had an unexpected moreishness that the Tesco version was certainly lacking.  These may not be the perfect Garibaldi, but certainly of a decent standard to buy from one of the cheaper supermarket chains.

Rating:
*****

Biscuit Blog: Tesco Garibaldi Biscuits

 Tesco Garibaldi Biscuits

After a burst of Malted Milks, I have turned to another common type of biscuit in the UK - the Garibaldi.  Aside from Bourbon biscuits, named after the Bourbon dynasty that ruled France (1820-48), Navarre (1820-30), Parma (1854-59) and Two Sicilies (1859-61), Garibaldis are the only ones named after a historical figure, i.e. Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-82) after he visited northern England in 1854, though manufacture did not begin until 1861, the year Italy was largely unified.  Italian unification had been central to Garibaldi's political work.

They are flat reasonably plain biscuit filled with raisins.  Unlike any other biscuit I can think of they come in strips and have to be broken apart along predefined lines.  The biscuit should be glazed and they should have some sweetness.  However, even ahead of the general trend to reducing sugar manufacturers seem to have been making them less sweet than they once were.  In a good Garibaldi biscuit this is made up for by the sweetness of the raisins.

These trends explain the problem with these Garibaldis from Tesco.  The biscuits have no real flavour, they would be plain even if they were biscuits for cheese.  There is a bit of a crunch, whereas you expect chewiness in Garibaldis, and this just re-emphasises the lack of flavour.  I only got something like a hint of bicarbonate of soda in the after-taste.  The raisins which can save a Garibaldi, fail with this particular example and themselves taste rather stale, imbuing no sweetness to the biscuit.  There is no moreishness in these biscuits and overall they were very disappointing.  Yes, Garibaldis, despite the name are not ostentatious biscuits demanding attention, but neither should it taste as if you are simply eating packaging.  I hope to find a better variety of Garibaldis elsewhere.

Rating:
*****