It's been biscuit revelation after biscuit revelation this week. Now that we all know the correct way to pronounce Nice biscuits, Channel 4's Food Unwrapped has revealed why bourbon biscuits have holes in them. Oooh.
While we always assumed it was to soak up the tea (right? RIGHT?), team manager at the United Biscuits Factory Mark Greenwell says it's actually down to a totally different reason; the baking.
In order to let the steam out of soft biscuits such as bourbon creams, the holes are added before they're cooked, to stop them cracking or breaking in the process.
"If the holes weren't there, steam would build up inside the biscuits", Mark explained on the programme. "The biscuit would collapse back down and you wouldn't have a controllable product.
"You're trying to get steam out of the biscuits to have an even texture."
It makes so much sense - especially when presenter Kate Quilton went on to explain that hard biscuits such as ginger nuts require the steam in order to give them their crunch.
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"Because the steam stays inside the biscuits, the trapped heat caramelises the sugar", she added. "The sugar becomes a glass like structure, like you find in a boiled sweet, and that's what gives a ginger nut it's characteristic snap."
So soft biscuits = no steam. Hard biscuits = lots of steam. Who knew biscuits were so scientific?
[h/t Daily Mail]
Dusty Baxter-Wright is an award-winning journalist and the Entertainment and Lifestyle Director at Cosmopolitan, having previously worked at Sugarscape. She was named one of PPA’s 30 Under 30 for her work covering pop culture, careers, interiors and travel, and oversees the site’s Entertainment and Lifestyle strategy across print, digital and video. As a journalist for the best part of a decade, she has interviewed everyone from Louis Theroux and Channing Tatum to Margot Robbie and Ncuti Gatwa, while she has also spoken on Times Radio and BBC Radio. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram here.
