Classification of biscuit types and methods of production

Abstract

BISCUITS are broadly classified as being of hard dough or soft dough origin. The hard dough group are savoury, unsweetened, or semisweet, and include all types of crackers, puff dough biscuits, and the semi-sweet varieties such as Marie, Rich Tea, and Petit Beurre. In addition to having a low sugar content, or none at all, the fat content rarely exceeds 22.0% of the flour content, except in the case of puff doughs (but even these have a very low fat content at the mixing stage). The soft dough group includes all the sweet biscuits, whether they are plain biscuits, shells, or flow type such as gingernuts. Soft dough biscuits all have many factors in common, but hard dough biscuits fall naturally into three sections: fermented doughs, puff doughs, and the semi-sweet doughs.