When: Tues 13 April 2021
All are 200g packets. All bought from supermarkets in the Stellenbosch area. Presentation was blind. Comments are mine, all mine.
Price & BB
(per 200g packet as @ April 2021)
Checkers Housebrand Coconut Biscuits: R11.99 MAN17/02/2021 BB17/02/2022
Chelsea Coconut Biscuits: R14.99 MAN26/02/2021 BB26/02/2022
Bakers Original and Best Tennis Classic Coconut Biscuits: 19.99 MAN21/10/2020 BB20/10/2021
Spar Coconut Tea Biscuits: 13.99 MAN21/01/2021 BB21/01/2022
Pick n Pay Coconut Tea Biscuits: 17.99 MAN16/03/2021 BB16/03/2022
Baumann's Match Biscuits Coconut Flavoured Teatime treat: R13.99 MAN16/02/2021 BB15/05/2022
Ingredients
Not a complete ingredient list - I've only highlighted some info. See images of packaging above for more info (Spar to be added)
Checkers Housebrand: 5% coconut
Chelsea: 2nd highest salt, 5% coconut, butter (no%), dietary fibre 0.5g/100g much lower than the rest that are all between 2 and 3g/100g
Bakers: 7% coconut (tied-highest), 8% butter, made with golden syrup
Spar: 7% coconut (tied-highest), no butter, made with golden syrup
Pick n Pay: 6% coconut, butter (no%), half the sugar of the rest
Baumann's: rice flour, highest salt, no coconut (and the label says "coconut flavoured")
Appearance
Biscuits evaluated upside down to keep evaluation blind as some are easy to identify right side up esp Tennis that has the name printed on the biscuit.
Checkers Housebrand: thin, medium golden, evenly baked with slight darkening on edges, fatty-like appearance and >>> pattern on the base
Chelsea: thin, dark golden, evenly baked with darker edges, glossy fatty appearance and >>>> pattern on the base
Bakers: medium to thick, darker colour, evenly baked, crisp appearance with """"""" pattern on the base
Spar: medium thickness, medium fatty appearance, evenly browned grid lines giving a stripey pattern.
Pick n Pay: thin, similar to CHB and Chelsea, most "fatty"-like, darker golden like Chelsea, with a light patch in the centre and more baked at the edges and >>>>>> pattern on the base
Baumann's: thickest, "matt" appearance, most different in appearance to the rest, dry - less fatty-looking, and also a different grid pattern and "scalloped" edge - this was the only biscuit with this scalloping ("pretty").
Aroma
Checkers Housebrand: high fatty (mainly marg-like) aroma, lots of savoury, and low coconut aroma
Chelsea: medium high fatty (mainly marg and oil-like) aroma, medium low coconut and low savoury - low aroma overall
Bakers: medium high coconut, high biscuity and nutty aromas, and some vanilla/caramel aroma
Spar: high buttery/oily aromas, medium low coconut and savoury aromas
Pick n Pay: low aroma similar to Chelsea, with mainly fatty and biscuity aroma
Baumann's: "baby powder" floral vanilla/caramel aroma, and medium biscuity and coconut aromas
Flavour
Checkers Housebrand: medium biscuity, savoury flavour, and low coconut flavour
Chelsea: medium to low biscuity, savoury flavor, and low coconut flavour
Bakers: stronger coconut and biscuity flavour
Spar: oily margarine flavour and some coconut oil flavours
Pick n Pay: medium margarine flavour and low biscuity flavour
Baumann's: buttery, coconut, vanilla flavour and almost some coffee flavour, quite different to the others
Basic Tastes
Checkers Housebrand: quite salty, medium sweet
Chelsea: quite salty, with a salty aftertaste, and medium+ sweet
Bakers: lower salty, medium sweet
Spar: very salty, low sweet, long aftertaste
Pick n Pay: quite sweet with a salty aftertaste
Baumann's: medium sweet, medium salty
Mouthfeel
Checkers Housebrand: medium+ crisp, soft crunch, fatty mouthfeel
Chelsea: medium+ crisp, softer crunch, fatty mouthfeel
Bakers: high crisp, harder crunch
Spar: harder texture, pieces of coconut, turns into a paste in the mouth
Pick n Pay: feels like sugar crystals in the biscuit, can also feel coconut pieces, medium-high crisp, fatty mouthfeel
Baumann's: high crisp, dry, low fatty, pieces of coconut.
General comments
Here is a quick napping that I did:
In hindsight I'd probably move the Baumann's out a bit further left.
I generally only buy coconut biscuits when I want to make a Peppermint Crisp Tart, so I made two peppermint crisp tarts: one with Bakers Tennis and one with Baumann's Match biscuits (all other ingredients were the same, and I used a similar shaped dish).
How did the tarts differ?
The Bakers biscuits softened more and become fluffier than the Baumann's, which kept their shape more. The tart made with Baumann's was also slightly drier, and the coconut flavour was more subtle, and the texture was not homogenous - with some bites drier than others - maybe the addition of rice flour kept the biscuit drier? The tart made with the Bakers biscuits had a stronger coconut flavour, and one could feel the coconut pieces. The texture of the biscuit-part of the tart made with Bakers was quite homogenous and, as I mentioned, softer and fluffier.
Baumann's are thicker, so I needed a greater % of the packet to make the same size tart.
A few weeks later I bought the new Bakers Mint Choc Tennis biscuits and made a third Peppermint Crisp tart with those. I know I'm not meant to say whether I like something or not, but wow, that did make an excellent Peppermint Crisp tart. It is a nice way to get more mint into the dish, especially since the Peppermint Crisp bar is now so difficult to get hold of (my local supermarkets haven't received stock in months.
Other new flavours in the Bakers range include Caramel flavoured, Lemon flavoured and Cappuccino flavoured. I used the Lemon flavoured version for a baked lemon cheesecake crust - what this space for another blog post with those results.