For my international readers out there, Jammies Dodgers are probably one of the main pillars of British society. Jammie Dodgers, Digestives and custard creams. These three biscuits are likely the only things keeping most British people together most of the time. I know, at least for myself, that there are very few situations where a Jammie Dodger or a chocolate digestive does not make it ten times better. Bad day at work? Digestive fixes that. Feeling a bit tired and gloomy? A digestive and a cup of tea will lift all spirits. Need a little self care? Jammie Dodgers to the rescue. I for one truly believe that it is impossible to have poor mental health when you have a perfect cup of tea and a few biscuits on hand. And yes…biscuits should be dunked into the cup of tea. But not hobnobs. Hobnobs are not for dunking.
I feel I have gone off on a tangent…My main point is that Jammie Dodgers are a classic for me.
I therefore had to pick up these strawberry flavoured versions when I saw them. Now I do not know if I am late to the party, or if the creators of the Jammie Dodger were a bit slow on their production, but I found these in my local store about a week ago. Just as England is leaving the heat of the summer and moving into the colder and far wetter winter months. Yes, Jammie Dodgers are a year round necessity, but a full strawberry flavour seems like a summer exclusive.
Either way, I bought a packet and with my trusty cup of tea, I tried a few as a mid-afternoon snack. Firstly, they don’t taste much different. There is a very subtle hint of strawberry, mostly in the jam, whilst the actual biscuit still tastes like a standard biscuit. It is now pink though so I guess that’s quite cute. But the colouring adds nothing to the flavouring. Now if you like Jammie Dodgers, then this doesn’t make much of a difference, as Jammie Dodgers are meant to be mostly biscuit with a very sweet jelly like filling in the middle. Their base version is a raspberry flavour, so I don’t feel like a strawberry version is bold enough a flavour to really stand out. So whilst it is still tasty, not quite sure why you would pick this one over the base raspberry option unless you really just had a craving for strawberries.
The other thing that bothers me is that the jelly filling is very thin, which not only meant that the flavour was quite mild, it also made for a pretty dry biscuit. You absolutely would need to have a cup of tea or some other beverage to hand if you wanted to try these as they were very dry. I also found them to be very crumbly. Normally with the base version, there is enough jelly in the middle to largely hold the biscuit halves together so there is limited crumbs when you bite into it, but these strawberry ones seemed to crumble with the first bite, which made for a messy eating experience and a somewhat gross dunking experience. There is nothing worse than left over crumbs in your cup of tea (hence why hobnobs are the worst to dunk!) and these very much seemed to just disintegrate.
The good news is that these cost the same as the standard packet, which for me in Tesco were 85p. So perhaps my expectations are a little high for a treat that is under £1. I also got 8 biscuits in my packet, so for 85p that does seem like a pretty good deal. I do find with all Jammie Dodgers though that two biscuits is enough for me, and they do not seem to last very long once the packet is open, in that they can get stale quite quickly. If you have a cookie jar then this isn’t an issue, but just something to keep in mind if you are thinking of trying these.
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