Speaking of biscuits:
- some biscuits, if left out, go soft and soggy;
- others go harder than they should be;

How? And, if you got the mixture just right, could you make one that oscillates from soft to soggy every day?
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:00, 11 replies)

If they go hard, they are cakes.
Cakes lose moisture into the air and so go hard. Biscuits are dry and absorb moisture, so they go soft.

I'm fairly sure this is how the Jaffa Cake debate was resolved.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:10, closed)

It is
Jaffa Cakes are cakes not biscuits, so there is no import tax on them (as there would be on a luxury item such as a chocolate biscuit). The fact that they go hard was just one of the reasons, though.
( MatJ LOOK, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:24, closed)

"import tax"
That's worse than saying 'VAT on choclit biskits' in my book.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:38, closed)

I thought all biscuits went soft?
Isn't that part of the legal definition?
Edit: Damn, beaten to it.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:12, closed)

Biscuits should be "cooked" twice
It's what the name means - first they are baked, then they are dried in a hot oven to go hard. These are the ones that go soft over time.

Cookies, on the other hand, are only cooked once, so they should be slightly soft. These are the ones that get harder over time.

Easy.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:15, closed)

Wrong.
They're cooked once. The cooked twice comes from the word 'biscuit', french for cooked twice, or thereabouts. No modern biscuits are cooked twice.

Cookies are eactly the same thing as (English) biscuits. It's from an old dutch word , kokje or something. Americans call it that because biscuits over there are something else.

Digestive biscuits in America are called Graham crackers. they're not allowed to call them digestives, because it is seen as a claim that they have medicinal properties, which they don't. They're called digestives because when they were invented, it was considered impolite to call them anti-flatulence biscuits. Probably still not a great marketing line.

By coincidence, I was reading all this on the bog, in my QI general book of ignorance this morning.
(username failed moderation, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 9:03, closed)

*klaxons*

( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Tue 18 Oct 2011, 10:04, closed)

If only there were an easy way to re-moisten your biscuit

(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:33, closed)

It's all about ambient moisture
A cake will go soggier in a sauna.
(TheCastrator, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:56, closed)

Biscuits should always be dry: especially air biscuits.
otherwise they are not biscuits, they are known as following through.
(tootired Is searching for a funny sig, nothing good so far, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 20:51, closed)

Ah yes, the shart.
Many a night out has been ruined by this little-studied phenomenon.
(The Luggage is haunted..., Mon 17 Oct 2011, 22:07, closed)