Research :

The original biscuit was a flat cake that was put back in the oven after being removed from it's tin, hence the French name "bis" (twice) "cuit" (cooked). This very hard, dry biscuit was the staple food for sailors and soldiers for centuries.Feathery, light biscuits originated in Southern plantation kitchens but, now are popular throughout the United States. Rolled biscuits were a staple at most meals, but beaten biscuits became another Southern favourite. Beaten biscuits are made light by beating air into the dough with a mallet or a rolling pin, Beaten biscuits are typically thinner and crispier than baking powder biscuits.

Biscuit Facts :

• The average biscuit, (49g) contains 168 calories, which is equivalent to 8% of your recommended daily intake.
• Dunking your biscuit into a milky drink gives you up to 11 times more flavour release than from eating the dry biscuit alone.
• More than nine out of ten people voted for the elaborately designed custard cream, as their favourite biscuit.
  
• A survey showed 29 per cent of adults say they have been splashed or scalded by hot drinks while dunking biscuits.
  
• In 1991, a VAT tribunal in the UK ruled that a Jaffa cake is not a biscuit, saving Jaffa 17.5 per cent tax.
• The first digestive biscuit was created by Alexander Grant, a young McVitie's worker, over 100 years ago. The first chocolate digestive was made in 1925.

For our secondary research im going to look on the internet, magazines, the tv and newspapers to find out some facts that i cannot find out myself as we can include things like this in the documentary.


A biscuit is a baked edible product. The term is used to apply to two distinctly different products in North America and the Commonwealth Nations.

In the United States it relates to a small soft leavened bread, somewhat similar to a scone.
In Commonwealth English, it commonly is used to refer to a small and hard, often sweetened, flour-based product, most akin in American English to a cookie, or sometimes in the case of cheese biscuits, a cracker.


I found this information on wikapedia and we could use something like this at the beginning of our documentary when introcing the topic:
This term was then adapted into English in the 14th century during the Middle Ages, in the Middle English word bisquite, to represent a hard twice-baked product.

However, the Dutch language from around 1703 had adopted the word koekje, a language diminutive of cake, to have a similar meaning for a similar hard, baked product. This may be related to the Russian or Ukrainian translation, where biscuit has come to mean sponge cake.

The difference between the secondary Dutch word and that of the Latin origin is that, whereas the koekje as a cake rose during baking, the biscuit, which had no rising agent, in general did not (see gingerbread/ginger biscuit), except for the expansion of heated air during the baking process.

When peoples from Europe began to emigrate to the United States, the two words and their "same but different" meanings began to clash. After the American War of Independence against the British, the word cookie became the word of choice to mean a hard, twice-baked product.

Further confusion has been added by the adoption of the word biscuit for a small leaven bread popular in Southern American cooking.

Today, according to American English dictionary Merriam-Webster:

A cookie is a "small flat or slightly raised cake."
A biscuit is "any of various hard or crisp dry baked product" similar to the American English terms cracker or cookie.
A biscuit can also mean "a small quick bread made from dough that has been rolled out and cut or dropped from a spoon."
Today, throughout most of the world, the term biscuit still means a hard, crisp, brittle bread, except in the United States, where it now denotes a softer bread product baked only once. In modern Italian usage, the term biscotto is used to refer to any type of hard twice-baked biscuit.


I found all this information here off wikapedia and would be interesting to use some of the facts here in the documentary about the term of the biscuit i think wikepedia is good when researching the topic as it covers a lot of the aspects of the topic and provides some interesting facts that could be used in the documentary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuit
http://www.foxs-biscuits.co.uk/


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1561477/Custard-cream-voted-Britains-favourite-biscuit.html

i typed into google the nations favourite biscuit to try and get a better idea of what is popular as we asked questions in one area and gave out the questionaire in one area so we could get a better idea from the internet. I found this article saying that custard cream where voted britains favourite biscuits we can consider this when making our documentary as we can use this fact and use cut away shots of these biscuits to make it appealing we could also ask questions about this type of biscuit in our interview.

'More than nine out of 10 people plumped for the elaborately designed, sandwich style snack - taking 93 per cent of the overall vote.
Next in line when it comes to the nation's biscuit tastes is the bourbon with just over two per cent of the popular vote.
Further down the biscuit barrel is the cookie and ginger biscuit, garnering the support of just 1.5 per cent and 1.19 per cent respondents.
The digestive received less than one per cent of the vote. More than 7,000 took part in the online poll organised by wheat and gluten free product makers Trufree.
A spokesperson for the firm, said: "We were really surprised at how popular the custard cream is. Despite there being so much to choose from on the market it seems people still plump for a no-nonsense nibble."

here is some staticics that i taken from the article that we could use in our documentary.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7432092.stm
Here is another article about businesses that believe the type of biscuit they serve to potential clients could clinch the deal or make it crumble.
This is another acticle with facts and staticics that we could use in our documentary
the article tells us that the business is most likely to give out chocolate digestives
followed by shortbread and Hob Nobs.
Here are some staticics that we could use in our documentary that where found in the article:
30% of people frowned upon normal digestives been in a work envirment.

more than half of respondents looked down on dunking biscuits in tea or coffee during a meeting.
This article also tells us that custard cream is the nations favourite biscuit.

Another thing i did for my seconday research was go on a forum where people are dicussing there favourite biscuit's here are some of the things that people where saying which could also be use in the documentary:

I must admit, the humble old jaffa cakes are hard to beat, like pringles, once you start, you can't stop....Lol, I could munch my way through a whole box if I go unchecked....Lol


After tony saying this somebody has responded to him with this Well Tony, you could have gone and opened up the whole "is a Jaffa Cake a biscuit or cake" can of worms here.

Which again looks at the conflict we are asking in our documentary whether a jaffa cake is a cake or a biscuit so i found that other people are asking the question so we know that including this in the documentary will be make it more interesting.


In our questionaire we ask do you have a biscuit with your tea or coffee and this forum above is asking what is the best biscuit to dunk in coffee and tea and with 33%of the vote
Molasses cookies are the best to have with your tea.

Some websites i used to gather research information :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuit
http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/baking/biscuits
http://www.foxs-biscuits.co.uk/
http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/biscuits/index.php3
http://southernfood.about.com/od/biscuitrecipes/Biscuit_Recipes.htm