The chocolate biscuit cake cooked up by Pows
SIR – The recipe for the chocolate biscuit cake (Letters, October 6) was devised by prisoners of war of the 51st Highland Division when in captivity after Dunkirk. My brotherin-law was among those captured.
The cake was made from the contents of Red Cross parcels. They melted margarine and chocolate in a tin over the stove in the prison huts and added broken up (often stale) biscuits. After five years, they brought the recipe home to their families, who were suffering food shortages and found it very tasty.
It has been handed down in many families and is made to this day by my daughter, and I made it for her wedding cake. I doubt the soldiers had digestives at that time but they are easier to break up than Rich Tea biscuits. Either will do, and cherries or nuts can be added.
Lady Maclellan
Stirling
SIR – Several years ago, whenever I took an elderly friend shopping, she bought a packet of Rich Tea biscuits and a packet of chocolate digestives.
On our return to her house we had a cup of tea and each time she offered me a Rich Tea and each time I would say: “I don’t call that a biscuit.”
The remark fell on deaf ears and the chocolate digestives were never opened in my presence.
Jean Lewis
Andover, Hampshire
SIR – Rich Tea biscuits are not the most pointless food ever devised (Letters, October 7). That prize goes to reduced-fat Rich Tea biscuits. Paul Bendit
Arlington, East Sussex
SIR – At least Rich Tea biscuits are sweet. Celery has nothing to recommend it whatsoever. Just thinking about it makes me shudder.
Ruth Bennett
Southampton
SIR – What is the point of Rich Tea biscuits? Economy!
My children had to eat two Rich Tea biscuits before they were allowed a chocolate digestive. Bobby Downing
Bewdley, Worcestershire
SIR – Rich Tea biscuits are just as they have always been, but digestives biscuits lost their texture and became powdery at the time when food companies were urged to reduce the sugar or fat content of their products.
They are now tasteless apart from a suspicion of salt, and are often broken in the packet because of the lack of binding.
Other biscuits such as shortbread have lost their original flavour, too. I’ve reached the crunch point and don’t buy them anymore.
Janet Robson
Charvil, Berkshire