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Something I haven't really written about here on Chocolatier.co.uk is chocolate-covered biscuits. That realisation came as I trawled through oodles of photos on Instagram of people waxing lyrical about McVitie's latest incarnation, the Gingerbread Milk Chocolate Digestive.
Illusive here in South Wales, I struggled to get my mitts on a pack. But good things come to those who wait, and my local Co-op started to stock the line last week. So while I wait patiently to find McVitie's Christmas Pudding Milk Chocolate Digestives, I thought I'd take the gingerbread version for a test drive. (UPDATE: I've since found the Christmas Pudding chocolate digestive biscuits).
It's nearly Christmas after all, and combining gingerbread and chocolate-topped digestive biscuits has got to be a sure-fire winner, right?
Packaging
The 250g pack of McVitie’s Gingerbread Milk Chocolate Digestives rocks an orangey-red film exterior. A doodle of a snow-clad chocolate digestive biscuit sits on the front of the wrapper next to the brand and product logos.
Along one side of the pack is the list of ingredients and nutritional information.
McVitie’s Gingerbread Milk Chocolate Digestives Biscuits ingredients:
Flour (wheat flour, calcium, iron, niacin, thiamin), milk chocolate (28%) (sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, dried skimmed milk, dried whey (milk), butter oil (milk), vegetable fats (palm, shea), emulsifiers (soya lecithin, E476), natural flavouring), vegetable oil (palm), wholemeal wheat flour, sugar, glucose-fructose syrup, raising agents (sodium bicarbonate, malic acid, ammonium bicarbonate), salt, natural ginger flavouring.
The 250g pack contains 17 biscuits on average and each one contains just over 28% sugars. Recommended portion sizes aren't given although the nutritional information breaks the stats down per biscuit, so that might suggest it's one measly biscuit. Personally, two or three at a time feels about right.
One bugbear is that the film packaging cannot be recycled in the normal manner at home. Instead, you need to find a local Terracycle scheme that can recycle it for you. In an ideal world, the film packaging could be recycled as easily at home as a cardboard box. One day, perhaps...
McVitie’s Gingerbread Milk Chocolate Digestive Biscuits Review
I carefully peeled apart one end of this seasonal edition of the humble chocolate digestive biscuit. The aroma is a curious one, with ginger leading the way. It smells just like the powdered ginger you'd use in baking.
In terms of appearance, it's a chocolate digestive. It looks pretty much like any other McVitie's Chocolate Digestive I've ever seen. On one side you've got the "McVities Original" text imprinted on the digestive biscuit, and on the other side you've got a rippled coating of milk chocolate.
The crunch is the same as you'd expect from a regular chocolate-covered wheatmeal biscuit but the taste is not. It begins in the same way, but quickly introduces the ginger flavour together with a little warmth at the tail end.
I had anticipated this being a plain digestive biscuit covered with a ginger-flavoured milk chocolate layer. In fact, it's the other way around. Just like the aroma, the taste is similar to powdered ginger, which appears to come from the biscuit itself. It doesn't really evoke the comforting Christmas imagery I expect from a festive-themed product.
The taste resembles the love child of a milk chocolate digestive and a Ginger Nut biscuit. It's got the texture of a chocolate digestive but the flavour of a ginger snap biscuit. I suppose it's the closest way McVitie's could get to a gingerbread flavour digestive biscuit without swapping it out for actual gingerbread.
Overall, the result is pretty average. Unlike the milk chocolate digestive, I found I was happy with just one or two at a time. They aren't as moreish as their original cousins, nor do they feel as satisfying. This Christmas edition just doesn't hit the spot for me, and isn't something I'd rush out and buy again unless it was on offer. Perhaps the Christmas Pudding Digestive Biscuits are better, although I've read mixed reviews on those too.
McVitie’s Gingerbread Milk Chocolate Digestive Biscuits Review
RRP: £1.50 | McVitie’s | Shop now
With so much hype online, I expected big things but was somewhat disappointed. These have a ginger flavour but don't evoke comforting Christmas imagery of freshly baked gingerbread. Essentially, it's a chocolate digestive biscuit with the flavour of a ginger snap biscuit.
Where to Buy Online
Finding these biscuits online is near-on impossible. There's a few listed on eBay at a bit more than the £1.50 recommended retail price.
In person, ASDA and Co-op is your best bet. I bought mine from Co-op at the offer price of £1. Until recently, ASDA were selling it for £1 too, but have now raised that to £1.50.
It's not worth a special trip out though. If you spot them during the weekly shop, and you like both chocolate digestives and ginger snap biscuits, give them a whirl. They're something different, at least.
Have you tried these and did you like them? Let me know in the comments below.
