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
x
