You learn something new every day.
Had you written those holes in Bourbon biscuits off as no more than an aesthetic choice? Well we bet you feel rather silly right about now.
Because it turns out that there’s a very good reason for those little perforations in the treat which, in 2015, was voted the United Kingdom’s ninth favourite biscuit.
The Bourbon biscuit was introduced in 1910 originally under the name Creola.#FunFact #Vsaas pic.twitter.com/HJXyWwCE4G
— MultiSight (@MultiSight) August 2, 2017
Mark Greenwell, team manager at Carlisle’s United Biscuits factory, which makes McVitie’s and Carr’s water biscuits, has just explained why those holes exist and it all comes down to texture and the desired effect when they are bitten into by us savages.
“If the holes weren’t there, steam would build up inside the biscuits,” he said on Food Unwrapped. “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.”
Why then, we hear you ask, do certain biscuits have holes and certain biscuits not?
Well, it’s quite simple really. Those biscuits that are adored for their crunching snap, such as Ginger Nuts, are not produced with any Bourbobesque perforations so that they will crack rather than crumble.
“Because the steam stays inside the biscuits, the trapped heat caramelises the sugar,” presenter Kate Quilton explained.
“The sugar becomes a glass like structure, like you find in a boiled sweet, and that’s what gives a Ginger Nut its characteristic snap.”
