Sound the Crumpets!

Part 1: The Best British Biscuit Revealed

Greetings from the Green and Pleasant land, where I am on my annual visit to my very pleasant, but definitely not even a little green in-laws.

We are moments away from the World Cup final’s 11 AM GMT kick-off. According to a report I read in the Daily Mail (because I’m classy and read only the best), Waitrose supermarket chain has laid in extra breakfast foods so people can nosh their way through the match. Most staggeringly: an estimated 31 million pints of beer will be consumed. I did the math: That’s 1.8 pints for every man, woman and child in the country.

Our first stop is always the supermarket, where we stock up on goodies as if we were 8 year olds living alone. This means all manner of biscuits that we only can get here, including the winner of The Best All-Around Biscuit in our very official Bates Best-Of Biscuits List is Waitrose’s “generously coated” ginger shortbread. The cookie itself is spicy with ginger and the dark chocolate is very, very thick and made from actual chocolate, not some palm-oil nonsense that only looks like chocolate.

My kids head for the candy aisle, to see if Cadbury’s has anything new on offer (nothing this year, so classic Dairy Milk ended up in the cart—sorry, shopping trolley. We also laid in a supply of Yorkshire Gold tea, gin (Chase’s is made locally and they have a marmalade version. Need I say more?) and crumpets, which we eat with vulgar amounts of butter and honey.

The Biscuit Lifetime Achievement Award goes to the dark chocolate McVitie’s digestive.

(Please do not worry we will get scurvy. We also sometimes eat vegetables and regularly glorm up ruby red local strawberries and raspberries.)

I will send updates throughout the week, and hopefully tuck in a recipe or two.

In the meantime, here are some British recipes from past newsletters, so you can eat along with me.

The Perfect Scone: Made without butter—only heavy cream—this recipe is v. easy and willingly takes whatever add-ins you like.

A Sweet Breakfast Trifle: Layers of yogurt, cake and rosé simple syrup make for a very elegant start to the day.

Raspberry Bakewell Tart: Filled with rich almond cake and a thick layer of fresh raspberries and raspberry jam, it’s one of my favorite creations of the year.

Millionaire’s Shortbread: My daughter’s favorite British treat is layers of shortbread, creamy caramel and chocolate. My daughter is smart.

Best Cheese Scone Ever in the Whole Wide World: Cheesy, flaky, cheesy and flaky.

And how are you? Do you have a favorite British treat?

This substack is a reader-supported publication. If you’re able, paying for a subscription helps pay for biscuits, crumpets and groceries for recipe-testing, recipe development and supports me—a freelance writer. The pay scale for journalists and writers has not kept up with the cost of living. That’s why having a substack newsletter has become such a terrific venue for so many writers. Best of all, however, it puts me, Bosco, Calvin and Clyde in touch with our readers like never before. Thank you.

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