Best biscuits: Get the kettle on for the most delicious biccies available right now
Add some new products to your snacking arsenal with our pick of the best biscuits
The mid-afternoon call of the biscuit tin is a tough one to ignore. Paired with a cuppa, there’s little better to combat that 4pm slump than the best biscuits. But – tempting as it is – we needn’t limit our biscuit choices to the standard corner shop fare, especially when there’s a whole world of gourmet biscuit deliciousness out there ready to be discovered. From luxury oaties and perfectly snappable shortcakes to the prettiest biscuit tins for gifting (or not), it’s time to step away from the custard cream and broaden your biscuit game.
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Best biscuits: At a glance
- Best-value chocolate biscuit: Choco Liebniz
- Best biscuit selection box: Fortnum & Mason Explorer’s Biscuit Selection Tin
- Best iced biscuits: Honeywell Biscuit Co Great British Garden Birds Biscuit Gift
- Best bake-at-home cookie: Doughlicious Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
How to choose the best biscuits for you
What’s your jam?
Yes, we all like a digestive, but quite frankly we deserve to elevate our tea break with something a little more luxe. Will you choose something squidgy and warm for a dose of home comfort or is it all about that snap for you? Is chocolate a biscuit essential or are you a purist who wouldn’t dream of dipping anything but an unadorned biscuit into your cuppa?
Texture, fillings and flavours are important choices when selecting your ultimate biscuit, though if you can’t decide then a selection box is the way to go every time. We have bad news for jammy biscuit fans, however: none of the jam-based biscuits we tried made the grade. We spot a gap in the luxury biscuit market that’s calling out for filling.
What’s the occasion?
All of these biscuits are serious treat territory in our book and absolutely not the domain of the office biscuit tin. However, while super-swanky biscuit selections absolutely have their time and place, it’s probably not one for most of us to splash out on every day, so we’ve included a few value options in our roundup. Similarly, while bake-at-home biscuits hands down taste the best, we’ve not always got a spare 20 minutes to prepare for our coffee break, so it makes sense to have a ready-baked alternative on standby for biscuit emergencies.
Our solution? Buy them all and eat wisely; we won’t tell if you don’t share.
How we test biscuits
The best way to test biscuits is by putting our GBBO judge hat on (along with the kettle) and getting down to the serious business of eating them. But it’s not just mindless dunking and munching here at Expert Reviews. We note how snappable the biscuit is, how soft-yet-crunchy, whether it’s suited to teatime occasions and – of course – how downright delicious it is.
A panel of hungry testers, across a range of ages, help us narrow down the most tasty specimens and take into account personal preferences for oat fans, chocolate biscuit buffs and more, to arrive at our eventual list of top rated biscuits. We also consider presentation – important for giftable biscuits – value for money and occasion in order to bring you the best. Put the kettle on and enjoy.
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The best biscuits you can buy in 2023
1. Fortnum & Mason Explorer’s Biscuit Selection: The best biscuit selection tin
Price: £14 (500g) | Buy now from Fortnum & Mason
As you’d expect, the biscuit game from the Queen’s grocer is strong. We’re lifelong fans of the Cherrylossus and Toffeelossus tins, but sometimes life calls for a bit of variety and that’s exactly what you get with the wonderful Explorer’s Biscuit Selection. An ideal choice for gifting, impressing the in-laws or just curling up on the weekend with, this selection is housed in Fortnum’s iconic turquoise tin.
It includes a sumptuous Earl Grey shortbread specially made in Edinburgh, an indulgent triple chocolate, sweet and nutty maple and pecan, a fine English honey biscuit, an Australian Anzac and the universally loved Chocolossus – a luxurious macadamia cookie encased in thick milk chocolate. All made using the finest ingredients, as you’d expect, this is a tin to treasure.
2. Honeywell Biscuit Co Great British Garden Birds Biscuit Gift: The best luxury iced biscuits
Price: £28 (for 5) | Buy now from Not On The High Street
For any special occasions incoming may we point you towards these intensely beautiful biscuits from Honeywell. Available in a range of quirky, cute and clever designs, we’ve fallen for the British Garden Birds collection, which includes a perfectly decorated blue tit, tawny owl, robin, swallow and kingfisher.
Each biscuit is handmade using locally sourced ingredients. It’s then carefully iced by hand with incredible detail before being presented in a recyclable luxury gift box. There are a range of seasonal iced biscuits to tempt you, as well as collections suitable for baby showers, birthdays, weddings and more. Free personalisation is available on many items, too. Biscuits last up to two weeks in the presentation box, or two months if kept airtight. A percentage from each sale is donated to Farm Africa, so your generosity is two-fold.
3. Bahlsen Choco Leibniz Milk: The best-value chocolate biscuit
Price: £1 (125g) | Buy now from Tesco
When it comes to the best biscuits, one particular high street biscuit is mentioned time and time again as a top-tier afternoon treat – the Choco Leibniz. For a touch of everyday luxury, the Bahlsen biscuit is hard to beat, and the fact you can pick up a pack with small change makes it even better. Fans cite its perfect chocolate-to-biscuit ratio, its snappable texture and delicious crispness as reasons for its popularity, but it’s also worth noting that Bahlsen is a family bakery that has been making sweet biscuits for over 130 years. Free from palm oil, colours and preservatives, the superlative biscuit is set into responsibly sourced milk chocolate (or dark, equally scrumptious), creating the signature Choco Leibniz frame. If you can nibble one without immediately scarfing the whole pack, you’re a better person than us.
4. Doughlicious Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: The best bake-at-home cookies
Price: £2.99 (204g) | Buy now from Waitrose
While this isn’t technically a biscuit, it’s pretty hard to beat a freshly baked choc chip cookie, and the clever lot at Doughlicious have made it easier to enjoy regularly with its gourmet ready-rolled cookie doughs. Available in a variety of tempting flavours, with options for vegan, gluten and dairy-free cookies, all you’ve got to do is pop the prepared dough onto a baking tray in a preheated oven for around 15 minutes.
The result? Irresistibly squidgy, thick and moreish cookies to brighten up your tea break in the kind of decadent style an ordinary biscuit can’t match. We don’t think you can beat a classic so plumped for the vanilla cookie dough studded with chunks of gooey Colombian chocolate that have won two Great Taste Awards, but it was a close-run thing with the Matcha & White Chocolate and the Cranberry Oatmeal.
5. Cartwright and Butler Sea Salted Caramel Oat Crunches: The best oaty biscuit
Price: £12 (200g) | Buy now from Cartwright & Butler
Hobnobs? We don’t know her after trying these. A truly elevated version of the supermarket classic dunker, these delightfully crumbly biscuits are packed full of chunky rolled oats, smothered in rich butter and tangy salted caramel.
We love the crumbly-yet-chunky texture, the decadent flavour and generous size of each biscuit. Available in a reusable tin, these luxury biscuits will keep fresh for up to two weeks if you can keep your hands off for that long. PS. The shortbread is also exceptional and we highly recommend you make yourself a hamper: you deserve it.
