Digestive biscuit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A digestive biscuit, sometimes referred to as a sweetmeal biscuit, is a semi-sweet biscuit or cookie, popular in the United Kingdom, in other Commonwealth countries, in the Republic of Ireland and in Greece. The name "digestive" derived from the belief that they had antacid properties due to the use of sodium bicarbonate when they were first developed.
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[edit] History
Digestives are known at least as far back as advertisements for Huntley & Palmers in 1876, with a recipe being given in 1894 Cassell's 'New Universal Cookery Book' of 1894.[1]
Rumours exist that it is illegal for them to be sold under the usual name in the United States,[citation needed] in fact they are widely available in imported food sections of grocery stores and by mail order. The McVite brand Digestive biscuit is the ninth-biggest biscuit brand in the UK.[citation needed]
[edit] Ingredients
The typical digestive biscuit contains coarse brown wheat flour (which gives it its distinctive texture and flavour), sugar, vegetable oil, wholemeal, high-fructose corn syrup (sometimes referred to as "glucose-fructose syrup") or partially inverted sugar syrup, raising agents (usually sodium bicarbonate, tartaric acid and malic acid) and salt. Dried whey, oatmeal, cultured skimmed milk and/or emulsifiers such as E472e may also be added in some varieties.
A biscuit averages around 70 calories, although this sometimes varies according to the factors involved in its production.
Digestive biscuits may not however be suitable for nut or soya allergy sufferers due to peculiar production methods. Also, such biscuits may contain milk and wheat gluten.
[edit] Consumption
Digestive biscuits are frequently eaten with tea or coffee. Sometimes, the biscuit is dunked into the tea and eaten quickly due to the biscuit's tendency to disintegrate when wet.
In the UK alone, the annual sales of chocolate digestives total about £35 million. This means that each year, 71 million packets of these are sold - and each second, 52 biscuits are consumed.[2] Digestives are also popular in cookery for making into bases for cheesecakes and similar desserts.[3]
[edit] Chocolate digestives
Chocolate digestive biscuits also are available, coated on one side with plain, milk, or white chocolate. Originally produced by McVitie's in 1925, other recent varieties include the basic biscuit with chocolate shavings throughout (chocolate 'chips' within the biscuit mix), or a layer of caramel, mint chocolate, orange-flavored chocolate[4] or plain chocolate. The US travel writer Bill Bryson described the chocolate digestive as a British masterpiece.[5]
[edit] Recipe substitution
In recipes calling for digestive biscuits it is common outside of the UK to substitute Graham crackers.
[edit] References
- ^ OED
- ^ McVitie's Brand History
- ^ Waitrose : Banoffee Pie
- ^ EnglishTeaStore.com: McVities Milk Chocolate & Orange Digestives 300g Accessed 2008-01-05
- ^ Bryson, Bill. (1996). Notes from a Small Island; William Morrow, ISBN 0688147259
