Melt in your mouth oatcakes (Stockan and Gardens Original Thin Oatcakes.)

Member Name: moo2moo

Product:	Stockan and Gardens Original Thin Oatcakes.
Date:	03/11/09 (25 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very easy to eat, a bit too easy in fact, it would be really easy to eat a few too many

Disadvantages: Sloppy toppings make them very soggy and prone to collapse

Tesco had sold out of Nairns Oatcakes, my preferred choice, so instead I purchased a 10g pack of Stockan & Gardens Original thin Orkney Oatcakes. They're minimalistically packed in just a layer of plastic film, much like florists film which is folded round the biscuits and sealed at the rear. The front features a the manufacturers name within a circular tartan band, a blue banner across the centre bears the legend "Orkney Oatcakes" and between the two is sandwiched a line drawing of The Old Man of Hoy, a 137m high red sandstone stack protruding from the sea off the island of Hoy and clearly visible from miles around.

The oatcakes in question are 66% oatmeal with vegetable oil, wheat flour, rasing agents and salt. Most unusually they're handbaked at The Granary in Stromness. A 100g pack contains 453 calories. As there are 8 biscuits in a pack this makes them 57 calories each, about a third less than a McVities Chocolate digestive.

The packaging is easy to open although no matter how carefully you do it it tears and cannot be reused so you'll either need to eat the entire packet or find somewhere airtight to store them as they go soggy after a few days in the open. Each biscuit is a quarter circle, triangular with a curved edge, making them rather pretty to look at and very practical too as you can put four on a small plate without any overlapping or falling off. They're very thin and very very crumbly and they smell delicious. Buttery but with a hint of oats. No surprise there. What comes as a surprise after the coarser Nairns Oatcakes is these melt on your tongue without the need to chew. Usually you masticate much like a cow to eat any oatcake.

The downside to this is that if you add sloppy toppings like cottage cheese the biscuits become very soggy and collapse rather easily mid bite which is potentially very embarasing in company. With cheese though they're lovely. Unfortunately after an entire pack I don't feel like I've eaten anything substantial, perhaps thats down to the lack of chewing required.

A 100g pack retails for 25p in larger branches of Tesco.

Summary: At 25p give them a whiz, you may be pleasantly surprised.