I’ve been reminded that we are overdue for another foreign biscuit review – the biscuits are piling up and need eating!

Today we’ve got a packet of Bakers Tennis classic coconut biscuits, hand delivered from South Africa by Maria, Matt and (M)Ellie a few months ago – many thanks gang! Apologies it’s taken me this long to get round to the review.

The 200g packet is an unassuming rectangle, mainly white with a slightly old-fashioned logo. Attractive enough in an understated way, although judging by the sound and feel at the corners, not offering a huge amount of protection to the contents. The back of the packet has a dense block of information in several languages and a weird variety of fonts – nothing unexpected in the ingredients though.

Pulling the little tab at one end to get into the packet confirms my fears – the end biscuit is broken with quite a few crumbs. I wonder if these packets normally have a few broken ones at the ends? Anyone care to comment?

The biscuits themselves are an attractive brown square, around 60mm to a side and 6mm thick. The top has a recurring flower motif, each centred around a little hole, and “Bakers Tennis Biscuits” stamped into the middle. The underside is fairly rough. The biscuit itself feels quite firm, but not too heavy.

There’s definitely a faint coconut aroma, and the initial bite is crispy, but not dense – these are a fairly airy biscuit. Nice crunch and a fairly granular mouth feel. The coconut is the clear taste, and thankfully these aren’t too sweet – in fact they are almost a savoury biscuit by British standards! There’s an aftertaste of milk and a certain amount of salt as well. In many ways similar to a coconut malted milk, or to the Gjende I reviewed years ago in Norway.

Longer term, these biscuits seem to leave a bit of a coating to the inside of the mouth and teeth. Maybe not entirely pleasant, but it does mean the coconut taste persists for some time after eating. They are also a fairly dry biscuit – probably not easy to eat a lot without a drink to wash them down.

While munching on my samples, I’ve been trying to find out the origin of the name Tennis biscuit, with indifferent success. Were these meant to be eaten while playing or watching tennis? Does it add something to the game? Some googling around lead me to the website http://teriton.co.za/ (“A short history of the biscuit industry in South Africa” – fascinating stuff), which has a few notes about the Tennis biscuit, but mainly to say the manufacturer was inspired by a biscuit cutter they got with an oven in 1911 – no mention of where the actual name comes from.

In the absence of a game to tennis to test these biscuits against, I thought it best to try dunking them instead. I can confirm these biscuits are excellent dunkers – the airy structure allows a fair amount of liquid in, but they hold their shape well with only a little erosion. The added liquid brings out a lot of the missing sweetness and coconut taste – I’d say these are probably best enjoyed with a hot cuppa, rather than a racket and ball!

My googling also highlighted that Tennis biscuits are used as the ingredients in a number of cakes, cheesecakes, tarts and similar desserts – my guess is the durable structure holds up well against the other ingredients. Unfortunately I don’t have enough left to make any of these recipes!

In conclusion, this is a fine daily-eating biscuit. Not too rich, a good dunker, decent taste. The slightly mealy aftertaste and residue mean this isn’t one of my favourites, but it is definitely worth trying if you are in South Africa and need something to dunk.