BOTW #3: HobNob's

Again, sorry for the delay...I had this post all ready to go and post first thing this morning, but then I realized I somehow deleted all my pictures for this week's BOTW? Somehow? I really have no idea where they went. I normally write each of these posts about a week in advance, so the HobNobs are long gone right now so I'm just going to nick some pictures off the internet...Yeah, so...sorry 'bout that.

Name: HobNobs
Producer: McVitties

After my ridiculously transcendent experience with the now-oft-dreamt-about Club Milk last week, I decided to take it back to basics for this next post. I consider biscuits part of a dessert-like teatime routine so when I’m at SuperValu or Tesco’s I tend to pick up those biscuits of the chocolate-covered, cream-filled, and decadent variety. Tea biscuits before all these fancy modern toppings and fillings, however, used to be a much simpler affair. The McVitties HobNob is a perfect example of how even a plain biscuit can make for a great teatime snack.


HobNobs are simple, dry, crunchy, and slightly sweetened oat cookies. McVitties describes them as “Nobbly, oaty biscuits.” Now I don’t know about you, but I have no idea what they mean by “nobbly” and my spell-checker is getting very frustrated with that word. If I could hazard a guess, however, I would say “nobbly” has to do with the texture. And let’s face it, the texture is the most important and appealing part of the HobNob.

With “Oat & Wholemeal Goodness,” HobNobs feature large pieces of oats that give the biscuit a crumbly bite and keep it from being boring to chew. This crumbly texture combined with the oaty (Ok, McVitties. You win. I’ll use your silly made up word, too.) sweetness give HobNobs the overall impression of a really really really good graham cracker (really!). The texture holds up and the biscuit stays together enough to survive short dunkings into hot tea but it is also not too dry to enjoy without tea.

HobNobs are a classic digestive-type biscuit and are well-loved in Ireland as well as Great Britain. HobNobs also come in the chocolate-covered persuasion, for those interested. McVitties, the makers of HobNobs, are the king of the biscuit world (and they wield their crunchy, chocolatey, creamy scepter with wisdom and justice). They make many of the most popular biscuits in the market today, including Penguins (definitely to be profiled in the near future).

HobNobs are a perfectly simple biscuit great for dunking (and for detoxing from an overdose of Club Milk…). I’ll definitely grab a roll to toss in the cupboard whenever I’m feeling like I need “comfort biscuits” and I can easily justify eating (nay! demolishing!) that roll in fairly short order…HobNobs are, after all, a “good source of fibre.”