Types of Biscuits

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Frontier Biscuit

Biscuits, we all love them don’t we??…… at any time and all the time. This ever convenient snack is everyone’s favourite. But have you ever thought what exactly a biscuit is?

The word biscuit originates from the French word biscuit. And as wikipedia puts it “The Middle French word bescuit is derived from the Latin words bis (twice) and coquere, coctus (to cook, cooked), and, hence, means “twice-cooked”

There is a fair amount of confusion around our humble but delicious biscuit. In the United States it is small, soft, leavened bread, somewhat similar to a scone. The Biscuit as known in the Common wealth English is a small and hard, often sweet, baked product. It would be called either a cookie or a cracker in the United States, and either a biscuit or a cookie in Canada. Biscuits in the British Isles may be savoury (savory biscuits are often referred to as “crackers”) or sweet, such as chocolate biscuits, ginger nuts, custard creams or the Nice biscuit.

We bring to you the nomenclature of biscuits Crackers

Crackers; these are usually hard and savoury and make a crack sound when broken. They are mostly eaten with cheese and thus the term “cheese n crackers’. Sometimes you also get some sweet crackers.

Chocolate covered; Half way between biscuits and chocolate bars, are the chocolate covered biscuits. Those little individual foil wrapped chocolate covered biscuits are quit yummy to say the least. But it a bit of a cross between a cake and a biscuits at times, don’t you think?

Wafer biscuits; wafer sheets are converted into fingers these are filled by creams and thus the crisp delicious wafer biscuits

Shortcakes: Shortcakes use rich biscuits or scones as a base. They are either split or served whole, topped with sweetened fruit and whipped cream or ice cream.

Cakes; Usually easily distinguished from biscuits by their sheer size however individual cakes can be a bit trickier, for instance the macaroon is it a biscuit or a cake??. Also the Jaffa Cake despite having the word cake in its name can confuse some people.

The list of the type of biscuits is endless, and we could go on citing the different type of biscuits…. But hopefully the above classification should clear some confusion.

So until next time keep dunking and munching!!

Tea and Biscuits

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Frontier Biscuit

Tea and biscuits have a relationship like no other food I have come across. Though some may argue that rajma chawla or chole bhatura have the same affinity for each other, I have many times enjoyed one without the other. But our chai aur biscuit…., they not only complement each other, but are each feels incomplete without the other. Isn’t it..??
For all those who are shaking their head in disagreement, think back to the times when you sent your office boy running to the nukkad shop to get you a packet of biscuits to share with your friends during afternoon teatime in office, or the time as little kid when you climbed on a stool to get hold of that Biscuit jar, full of your favourite Kaju chocolate cookies to munch with your glass of milk before going to bed.

Biscuits and our most loved cookies are also the first snack to all our guests who drop into our homes announced or unannounced with tea
With changing environment, lifestyles and growing health concerns we may switched over to healthier options like green or jasmine tea, but we still accompany it with a healthy biscuit like a low calorie cookie or a Frontier Nutra Gold Biscuit, because without it our afternoon cuppa is still incomplete.
In fact now combining tea with biscuits has become a delicate and difficult art of drink and food matching akin to wine pairing. Heaven forbid, you combine the wrong biscuit with your fine earl grey or ruin a light puffy heart with your Masala Cha.

Tim Clifton, the former director of the UK Tea Council, and Simon Pope, the new product development controller at Fox’s Biscuits, have coauthored the Biscuit and Tea Tasting Guide. A compilation of biscuits and tea pairing to guide us through our indulgent afternoon teas.
While the ginger biscuit for best with our Indian tea, chocolate covered biscuit go best with the tannic ( tea with more tannin) Kenyan tea.So for all of us tea & biscuits lovers we now have help that help us indulge, and enjoy our afternoon cup of tea a little bit more….

Life & Biscuits!!

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Frontier Biscuit

It started as a typical winter morning in Delhi. I woke up and headed straight for my Chai, biscuits and the newspaper. As I dunked my favorite biscuit in my morning tea and scanned the newspaper for something to read beyond the usual falling stock markets and national scams a small article caught my eye. It read “…India is the world’s leading market for biscuits, ahead of the US, Mexico, China, Argentina, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey and Spain. While India showed a volume market share of 22%….”

My tryst with biscuits began as early as my first day to play school, when my mom would pack a few biscuits for my morning break as nothing else would do. I realized like me, millions of

Indian love their biscuits.

The word biscuit comes from the Latin word “bis coctus,” which means “twice baked.” The origin of biscuit can be traced back to ancient Rome where they were issued as a part of the army rations due to the nutritional value it provided

Today, this modest biscuit is an integral part of all our lives. Every day we eat it as rusks dipped in sweet hot tea at the nukkad tea shop while catching up on local gossip, serve it as kaju pista cookie with coffee at the office meeting, munch it as nan khatai while chatting with friends or devour it as ajwain cookies in place of breakfast.

Recognizing the importance of this little cookie in our lives we are happy to introduce to you are blog”…Name of blog….” on yes , you guessed it biscuits!!

So, see you soon again, till then, keep dunking and munching!!