On this International Biscuit Day, scientists have revealed the best dipping cookies – do you agree?

Whether it’s plain malted milk or fancy custard, no good cup of tea is complete without dipping biscuits.

With International Cookie Day, one huge question remains – what kind of cookie is best for dipping?

Researchers at the University Hospital of Wales decided to answer this important question and conducted a thorough dunk test with four popular strains.

Their results showed that the humble Hobnob is the best dipping cookie, followed by Digestive.

“Biscuit dipping is beneficial in cooling tea and should be encouraged, and oatmeal cookies were superior in achieving this compared to digestive, rich tea and shorty,” the team wrote in their study.

Whether it's plain malted milk or fancy custard, no good cup of tea is complete without dipping biscuits.  With International Cookie Day, one huge question remains - what kind of cookie is best for dipping?

Whether it’s plain malted milk or fancy custard, no good cup of tea is complete without dipping biscuits. With International Cookie Day, one huge question remains – what kind of cookie is best for dipping?

How to make the perfect NHS-style cup of tea

  1. Pour one tea bag in an unheated mug with 240 ml of freshly boiled water.
  2. Stir gently for 60 seconds before gently squeezing and removing the sachet.
  3. Finally, add 40 ml of semi-skimmed cow’s milk straight from the refrigerator.

For a study published in BMJThe researchers subjected four popular cookies – oatmeal, digestive, short and rich tea – to all of their steps in the ultimate dunk test.

While they acknowledge that chocolate-coated and cream-filled variants are popular, they decided to exclude them from the study.

“We have limited the selection of cookies by excluding chocolate and cream options as they can be very desirable as we felt it was important to limit the distraction and potential finger licking that typically occurs when eating cookies with cream or chocolate filling,” the team led by Carey. Jones wrote.

Once the cookie was chosen, a standard NHS-style drink was made for the dough.

To prepare this, the team poured 240 ml of freshly boiled water over one tea bag in an unheated mug.

It was gently stirred for 60 seconds, after which the tea bag was gently squeezed and removed.

Finally, 40 ml of semi-skimmed cow’s milk was added straight from the refrigerator.

The tastiest biscuit is the oatmeal biscuit, which is ahead of the digestive biscuits, rich tea biscuits, and short biscuits.

The tastiest biscuit is the oatmeal biscuit, which is ahead of the digestive biscuits, rich tea biscuits, and short biscuits.

Once the perfect cup of tea has been prepared, it’s time to soak it.

The team rated each cookie on six factors: time to tea (TTDT), nutritional value, satiety volume, crunch reduction, dipping limit point, and dipping pragmatic break point.

Perhaps the most important test, the pragmatic break point test, showed a cookie being dipped in tea for two seconds and then pulled away from the cup to see how long it would take for it to break.

In this test, the oatmeal cookie took first place, surviving intact for an impressive 29 seconds.

Shortie manages to last 17.5 seconds and Digestive broke after only 8.5 seconds.

Closing was Rich Tea, which only lasted two disappointing seconds.

Taking into account all six tests, oatmeal cookies were considered the best for dipping.

“The oatmeal cookie came in first place after all six tests,” the team said.

“The digestive system came in second place — it fell apart in three tests of absorptive capacity and structural integrity (saturation volume, dipping limit point, and pragmatic dipping breakpoint).

“Shorty” came in third, while rich tea (the only cookie to receive penalty points) came in fourth; the penalty points did not directly affect the rating of the rich tea.”