Biscuit

A biscuit, in many English-speaking countries, including Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa but not Canada or the US, is a flour-based baked and shaped food item. Biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers.
Types of biscuit include biscotti, sandwich biscuits (such as custard creams), digestive biscuits, ginger biscuits, shortbread biscuits, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, Anzac biscuits, and speculaas.
In most of North America, nearly all hard sweet biscuits are called "cookies" and savoury biscuits are called "crackers", while the term biscuit is used for a soft, leavened quick bread similar to a savoury version of a scone.
The word biscuits is used to refer to a broad range of primarily flour-based foods.
In general, the British, Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders, Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Singaporeans, Nigerians, Kenyans, and Irish use the British meaning of "biscuit" for the sweet biscuit. The terms biscuit and cookie are used interchangeably, depending on the region and the speaker, with biscuits usually referring to hard, sweet biscuits (such as digestives, Nice, Bourbon creams, etc.) and cookies often specifically for chocolate chip cookies. The British meaning is at the root of the name of the United States' most prominent maker of cookies and crackers, the National Biscuit Company, now called Nabisco.
The modern-day difference in the English language regarding the word biscuit is remarked on by British cookery writer Elizabeth David in English Bread and Yeast Cookery, in the chapter "Yeast Buns and Small Tea Cakes" and section "Soft Biscuits". She writes:
The Old French word bescuit is derived from the Latin words bis ('twice') and coquere, coctus ('to cook', 'cooked'), and, hence, means 'twice-cooked'. This is because biscuits were originally cooked in a twofold process: first baked, and then dried out in a slow oven. This term was then adapted into English in the 14th century during the Middle Ages, in the Middle English word bisquite, to represent a hard, twice-baked product (see the German Zwieback). It finally evolved into biscuit to follow the modern French spelling. The Dutch language from around 1703 had adopted the word koekje ('little cake') to have a similar meaning for a similar hard, baked product. The difference between the secondary Dutch word and that of Latin origin is that, whereas the koekje is a cake that rises during baking, the biscuit, which has no raising agent, in general does not (see gingerbread/ginger biscuit), except for the expansion of heated air during baking. Another cognate Dutch form is beschuit, which is a circular and brittle grain product usually covered by savoury or sweet toppings and eaten at breakfast.
When continental Europeans began to emigrate to colonial North America, the two words and their "same but different" meanings began to clash. The words cookie or cracker became the words of choice to mean a hard, baked product. Further confusion has been added by the adoption of the word biscuit for a small leavened bread popular in the United States. According to the American English dictionary Merriam-Webster, a cookie is a "small flat or slightly raised cake". A biscuit is "any of various hard or crisp dry baked product" similar to the American English terms cracker or cookie, or "a small quick bread made from dough that has been rolled out and cut or dropped from a spoon".
In a number of other European languages, terms derived from the Latin bis coctus refer instead to yet another baked product, similar to the sponge cake; e.g. Spanish bizcocho, German Biskuit, Russian бисквит (biskvit), and Polish biszkopt.
In modern Italian usage, the term biscotto is used to refer to any type of hard twice-baked biscuit, and not only to the cantucci as in English-speaking countries; it is the same for the modern French term biscuit.
The need for nutritious, easy-to-store, easy-to-carry, and long-lasting foods on long journeys, in particular at sea, was initially solved by taking livestock along with a butcher/cook. However, this took up additional space on what were either horse-powered treks or small ships, reducing the time of travel before additional food was required. This resulted in early armies' adopting the style of hunter-foraging.
The introduction of the baking of processed cereals, including the creation of flour, provided a more reliable source of food. Egyptian sailors carried a flat, brittle loaf of millet bread called dhourra cake while the Romans had a biscuit called buccellum. Roman cookbook Apicius describes: "a thick paste of fine wheat flour was boiled and spread out on a plate. When it had dried and hardened, it was cut up and then fried until crisp, then served with honey and pepper."
Many early physicians believed that most medicinal problems were associated with digestion. Hence, for both sustenance and avoidance of illness, a daily consumption of a biscuit was considered good for health.
Hard biscuits soften as they age. To solve this problem, early bakers attempted to create the hardest biscuit possible. Because it is so hard and dry, if properly stored and transported, navies' hardtack will survive rough handling and high temperature. Baked hard, it can be kept without spoiling for years as long as it is kept dry. For long voyages, hardtack was baked four times, rather than the more common two. To soften hardtack for eating, it was often dunked in brine, coffee, or some other liquid or cooked into a skillet meal.
The collection Sayings of the Desert Fathers mentions that Anthony the Great (who lived in the 4th century AD) ate biscuits and the text implies that it was a popular food among monks of the time and region.
At the time of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the daily allowance on board a Royal Navy ship was one pound of biscuit plus one gallon of beer. Samuel Pepys in 1667 first regularised naval victualling with varied and nutritious rations. Royal Navy hardtack during Queen Victoria's reign was made by machine at the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard at Gosport, Hampshire, stamped with the Queen's mark and the number of the oven in which they were baked. When machinery was introduced into the process the dough was thoroughly mixed and rolled into sheets about 2 yards (1.8 m) long and 1 yard (0.9 m) wide which were stamped in one stroke into about sixty hexagonal-shaped biscuits. This left the sheets sufficiently coherent to be placed in the oven in one piece and when baked they were easy to separate. The hexagonal shape rather than traditional circular biscuits meant a saving in material and was easier to pack. Biscuits remained an important part of the Royal Navy sailor's diet until the introduction of canned foods. Canned meat was first marketed in 1814; preserved beef in tins was officially added to Royal Navy rations in 1847.
Early biscuits were hard, dry, and unsweetened. They were most often cooked after bread, in a cooling bakers' oven; they were a cheap form of sustenance for the poor.
By the 7th century AD, cooks of the Persian empire had learnt from their forebears the techniques of lightening and enriching bread-based mixtures with eggs, butter, and cream, and sweetening them with fruit and honey. One of the earliest spiced biscuits was gingerbread, in French, pain d'épices, meaning "spice bread", brought to Europe in 992 by the Armenian monk Grégoire de Nicopolis. He left Nicopolis Pompeii, of Lesser Armenia to live in Bondaroy, France, near the town of Pithiviers. He stayed there for seven years and taught French priests and Christians how to cook gingerbread. This was originally a dense, treaclely (molasses-based) spice cake or bread. As it was so expensive to make, early ginger biscuits were a cheap form of using up the leftover bread mix.
With the combination of knowledge spreading from Al-Andalus, and then the Crusades and subsequent spread of the spice trade to Europe, the cooking techniques and ingredients of Arabia spread into Northern Europe. By mediaeval times, biscuits were made from a sweetened, spiced paste of breadcrumbs and then baked (e.g., gingerbread), or from cooked bread enriched with sugar and spices and then baked again. King Richard I of England (aka Richard the Lionheart) left for the Third Crusade (1189–92) with "biskit of muslin", which was a mixed corn compound of barley, rye, and bean flour.
As the making and quality of bread had been controlled to this point, so were the skills of biscuit-making through the craft guilds. As the supply of sugar began, and the refinement and supply of flour increased, so did the ability to sample more leisurely foodstuffs, including sweet biscuits. Early references from the Vadstena monastery show how the Swedish nuns were baking gingerbread to ease digestion in 1444. The first documented trade of gingerbread biscuits dates to the 16th century, where they were sold in monastery pharmacies and town square farmers markets. Gingerbread became widely available in the 18th century. The Industrial Revolution in Britain sparked the formation of businesses in various industries, and the British biscuit firms of McVitie's, Carr's, Huntley & Palmers, and Crawfords were all established by 1850.
British biscuit companies vied to dominate the market with new products and eye-catching packaging. The decorative biscuit tin, invented by Huntley & Palmers in 1831, saw British biscuits exported around the world. In 1900 Huntley & Palmers biscuits were sold in 172 countries, and their global reach was reflected in their advertising. Competition and innovation among British firms saw 49 patent applications for biscuit-making equipment, tins, dough-cutting machines and ornamental moulds between 1897 and 1900. In 1891, Cadbury filed a patent for a chocolate-coated biscuit. Along with local farm produce of meat and cheese, many regions of the world have their own distinct style of biscuit due to the historic prominence of this form of food.
Biscuits and loaves were introduced in Bengal during the British colonial period and became popular within the Sylheti Muslim community. However, the middle-class Hindus of Cachar and Sylhet were very suspicious of biscuits and breads as they believed they were baked by Muslims. On one occasion, a few Hindus in Cachar caught an Englishman eating biscuits with tea, which caused an uproar. The information reached the Hindus of Sylhet and a small rebellion occurred. In response to this, companies started to advertise their bread as "machine-made" and "untouched by (Muslim) hand" to tell Hindus that the breads were "safe for consumption". This incident is mentioned in Bipin Chandra Pal's autobiography and he mentions how culinary habits of Hindus gradually changed and biscuits and loaves eventually became increasingly popular.
Biscuits can be placed in four categories, separated by their process and ingredients:
Crackers are savory biscuits with a "crispy, open texture". They include biscuits such as cream crackers, "Ritz-type" crackers, saltines, snack crackers (e.g. Arnott's Shapes) and water biscuits. Cracker doughs often have some of the following features: they are leavened, have a water content between 15–25%, are laminated and rise during the first part of baking.
In a general process to make crackers, dough is mixed and fermented. It is fed through a dough feed conveyer to be laminated, sheeted and cut. It is baked, sprayed with oil and cooled, before finally being packed. Baking surfaces differ by the country biscuits are baked in: traditional British biscuits being baked on light wire mesh, while American biscuits are baked on heavy mesh. The baking process requires high amounts of energy to get the relatively high hydration doughs to a final biscuit that is 1.5–2.5% water.
Semi-sweet biscuits are distinguished by a their consistent texture and colour. This consistency, and a voluminous appearance are a product primarily of the presence of humidity during the first part of baking. Examples of semi-sweet biscuits include Arrowroot, breakfast biscuits, Marie, Petit-Beurre and Rich tea. The doughs of semi-sweet biscuits have strong gluten, making it shrink during baking. They have low sugar and fat contents, and their water content, about 12%, is reduced to 1.5–3% through the baking process. In making semi-sweet biscuits, the dough is mixed, fed, undergoes sheeting and is cut and is baked. The biscuits are cooled before they are processed through stacking and/or packing.
Biscuits containing relatively high amounts of sugar and fat. The category covers many regional specialties, including the British custard cream and digestives, the Dutch speculaas, the Indian glucose biscuit and the Scottish shortbread. It also covers more generic biscuits of Lincoln and malted milk. Short biscuits are the simplest biscuits to make, which has led to them being widely produced in great volumes. They are frequently fortified. Short dough biscuits have a relatively low water content, and are cooked slower, and at low temperatures than crackers and semi-sweet biscuits.
Short doughs are produced through a two stage mixing process. The dough is stood, fed and undergoes rotary molding, the step by which short biscuits derive their alternative name of rotary molded biscuits. They are baked, cooled and stacked and packed. The structure is derived from a high humidity during early stages of baking
The widest category, cookies have very soft doughs. They are often baked directly on a steel oven band. Cookies have high sugar and fat contents, and are cooked longer than other biscuits at relatively low temperatures. Through the presence of humidity during the first stage of cooking, cookies spread as they are baked. Many cookies contain inclusions, such as nuts, chocolate chips (chocolate chip cookie) and fruits (e.g. raisins and figs in fig rolls). They include butter cookies, extruded cookies and cookies with their centres filled.
Cookies are produced through mixing a dough in two stages. The dough is baked on a steel oven band. It is then cooled and finally stacked and/or packed.
Biscuits are not commonly associated with any one ethnic identity.
The digestive biscuit and rich tea have a strong identity in British culture as the traditional accompaniment to a cup of tea and are regularly eaten as such. Some tea drinkers dunk biscuits in tea, allowing them to absorb liquid and soften slightly before consumption. Chocolate digestives, rich tea, and Hobnobs were ranked the UK's top three favourite dunking biscuits in 2009. In a non-dunking poll the Chocolate Hobnob was ranked first with custard creams coming third.
Brands in the European biscuit market are unusually old for the food and drink industry, with the main brands as of 2016 being on average 100 years old. Historically in these companies, the owners and top-level managers were heavily involved in brand management.
Media related to Biscuits at Wikimedia Commons