Featured Biscuit: McVitie's Boaster

Good afternoon, biscuit lovers! 

I realise I have been on something of a hiatus on this biscuity blog front, and its been 6 months since my last post. But I've been tres busy and I've been eating fewer new biscuits- generally sticking to my stock favourites of the dark chocolate digestive and the occasional custard cream.

So without further adieu, lets get on with it! The McVitie's Boaster! 

I must note here that the original variety of McVitie's Boaster also contains hazelnuts, so I've had to opt for an edition more friendly to my immune system, so as to prevent possible death by anaphylactic shock. At £1.96 per packet and only 8 biscuits per packet, I sure hoped these biscuits would live up to their reputation. From reading Nicey And Wifey's biscuit bible some years ago, I seem to recall that they were in the top ten biscuits of all time. 

So this afternoon, I sat down with an enormous mug of coffee:

And began THE LONG AWAITED REVIEW!

Size

As pictured, the biscuit, may appear to be a scaled up version of the ever popular Maryland Chocolate Chip Cookies- however these to me are far superior for reasons that will be discussed further on in the review. The size is approximately 8cm in diameter, something gargantuan to be claiming to be a cookie, and not being the large, chewy kind often sold in paper bags at supermarkets with 4 or 5 per bag- this distinction being made in the recipe containing varying proportions of golden syrup. Possibly difficult to gauge from the above photograph, but it is also quite a thick biscuit, perhaps a centimetre, but still very comfortable to bite.

Dunkability

Heed my warnings, biscuit fans, for you must be an experienced and steady-handed dunker to pull off a satisfactory dunk with the mcvitie's boaster, and thus I would advise is as an alongside-beverage-biscuit. The boaster is very prone to moisture absorption, and I would generally recommend avoiding dunking this biscuit at all- unless you happen to be, like myself an experienced biscuit dunker- in which case I would recommend a dunk lasting no longer than 2 seconds, otherwise you are in critical danger of ending up with a soggy mess rather than a lovely biscuity munch. Also I'd like to point out that unlike some sub-standard biscuit tin staples, the boaster is not so absorbent as to draw in moisture above what I call "the dunk like" (which is basically the level at which you dunk the biscuit into your beverage) 

Crumbliness

Undoubtedly one of the crumbliest biscuits I have ever encountered. However, I must point out that snapping a biscuit is a different action to biting, and though still crumbly, the biting of a boaster would not produce such a catastrophically messy break as pictured above. Do not fear, it is a pleasant crumble. I think it owes much of its type of break to the large chunks of chocolate in the biscuits creating biscuity fault lines along which the biscuit would break if snapped, but when biting of course you would bite right through the chocolate itself, and thus producing less excess crumbage. 

Tastiness

Perhaps the best thing about this biscuit was its tastiness- It was supremely tasty. It was buttery and melted in the mouth. And when it says "Chocolate chunks" it really means it, the non-uniform sized chunks of high quality Belgian chocolate was unlike any other chocolate chunk cookie I've had before. In previous cookies claiming to contain chocolate chunks, too often they have been substandard yucky icky chocolate all the same size and so evenly distributed, you could be forgiven for thinking that they had been made by a robot with a template and strict rules. This however was a super delish biscuit and I would recommend it to anyone who likes chocolate chip biscuits of any type. 

Overall Awesomeness

This may be my favourite biscuit I have ever reviewed. True, the Bahlsen milk chocolate chocoleibniz did do very well in its review, but it was a biscuit I was already very familiar with so the novelty had worn off somewhat by the time it came to review. Having never had a mcvities boaster before, I can safely say that it has earned the right to be called a boaster as it is simply supreme. The only thing that put me off the boaster was the price and the biscuits per packet. However, it is safe to say that you would need no more than two of these before you had your biscuity fill, but should you be sharing your biscuits with a few friends, the packet would soon be empty! 

I award this biscuit 4.5 Stars!!

....Until next time, biscuit fans!

-R

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Mc Vitie's Chocolate Orange Digestive

Welcome back folks!! Its been a little while since (ok, like 6 months or something) since I biscuityblogged so its high time I did it again! so here we go- The McVitie's Chocolate Orange Digestive!

Size

this is an excellent biscuit size. Round, it gets points. Same size as your standard issue mcvitie's digestive (with or without chocolate), gets points. Thick enough for a good crunch. points! points points points! In the past, I've been dissapointed by McVitie's downsizing their special edition biscuits. They must have been reading this blog though to hear of my disapproval. 

Dunkability

the dunkability of this biscuit is a bit hit-and-miss. Whilst taking this photo for the dunkability rating, I held on to it for too long and it became rather mushy, though did not sink to the bottom of my cup like the proverbial biscuity titanic. That being said, I don't think it would've lasted much longer. Unless you are one of those strange people who enjoy having their biscuits turn into a soggy mush, I would not recommend a dunk longer than 2.5 seconds maximum. Anything longer than 5 seconds could require a teaspoon rescue mission. Being a chocolate biscuit, there was a certain amount of chocolatey meltyness. It being chocolate orange, it didn't mix well with my coffee, but on a second attempt during a much shorter dunk, it was most satisfactory. 

Crumbliness

What suprised me most about this biscuit was that when I attempted to break it in two for its photograph (a standard, as biscuityblog veteran readers will know) it broke into three rather than two! Whether or not this is something to do with the temperature on the day which I indulge my sweet tooth (it being a pleasantly warm, yet breezy day in March) or the fact that it is a chocolate orange biscucit remains to be seen. I should probably consult a higher-qualified biscuitologist than myself for such questions. Being a digestive biscuit, it is made of wholemeal flour- which I find adds for a more interesting texture- though occasionally you do get a little bit of wheat husk stuck in your teeth; although this is generally after excessive biscuit consumption. 

Tastiness

Something my Grandma (whom I am visiting at the moment and who purchased the biscuits upon which I make my observations) said about the biscuits is that the orangey flavour is somewhat synthetic-y tasting and overly sweet- perhaps better accompanying a dark chocolate topping than the milk chocolate- which as far as I am aware are the only type of chocolate orange biscuits that McVities make. Perhaps McVities will, as they did with the size issue of special edition chocolate biscuits, heed my advice and make a dark chocolate version avaliable? Personally this would be preferable to me, as I maintain that the dark chocolate digestive is a vastly superior biscuit in everyday biscuit fayre. I found it difficult to discern whether or not the biscuit itself was orange flavoured, because the chocolate/orange combination was rather overpowering. However, had the biscuit been orange flavoured, I feel it would've been too much. With regard to the aforementioned synthetic taste to the chocolate, I checked the packaging to see if it was some nasty E number that we were to thank for this and was suprised to find out that the flavouring was natural and genuinely from oranges, which leads me to believe that it was something in the chocolate generating this aftertaste. 

Overall Awesomeness

The packaging has a triumphant little yellow sign on it that says "we're back!" which is lovely- however I don't ever remember seeing them before in the shops so either this is a pre-my writing biscuityblog biscuit, or a pre-my existence biscuit. That being said, the packet is also very orange, which to the peripheral vision of the  casual observer might make it difficult to distinguish from a packet of McVitie's Ginger Nuts (yet to be reviewed by me, I think- but an extremely good staple for anybody's biscuit tin). The crumble was quirky, the taste was a little sweeter than I am usually partial to, but I found to be a very satisfying biscuits. Things the biscuit could do to improve by my standards would be to have a chocolate version avaliable, to those of us who prefer a more intense chocolate experience, and to perhaps put a little more on- I referred a few posts back to the claim that dark chocolate digestives were claiming to have more chocolate on them, and feel this would suit the chocolate orange digestives well. Whether or not "we're back!" means that they are not to be gracing the shelves of supermarkets on a permanent basis or are metaphorically simply popping in for a cup of tea before going back off galavanting round the world is something only time can tell. 

I (and my Grandma) award this biscuit 3 stars!!

Until next time, biscuit fans!!

-R

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