Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese 8 Variety Cracker Selection, 300g
Every selection box has a shape nobody reaches for, and with this one you will have identified it by about the third gathering, when four varieties have gone and one is still sitting in the bottom of the carton. That is what buying range costs, and it is the honest reason the scores sit where they do. Set against it: one box instead of four packets, and a blue, a soft white and a hard aged cheese each getting something sensible underneath them rather than all three getting the same square. The seasoning across all eight is pitched low, which is the right decision, because a cracker that competes with a good cheese has misunderstood the job it was given. Put them out dry and let people build at the table, because cheese starts wetting a cracker within minutes and a board assembled an hour ahead is a board of bendy crackers. Allergens differ from variety to variety inside the one carton, so keep the carton on the table rather than in the bin with the wrapper.
Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese 8 Variety Cracker Selection, in brief.
Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese is the eight-variety cracker box from one of the long-established names in British and Irish cracker baking, a three hundred gram selection picked into the Teas.co.uk curator selection as the board box rather than the workhorse pack.
A cheeseboard needs more than one cracker. A soft white, a crumbly blue and a hard aged cheese all want something different underneath them, and eight varieties in one box is the only way to give them it. It holds half as much again as the Carr's selection box.
Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese is built around a point most cheeseboards get wrong: one cracker cannot serve a whole board. A soft white and a crumbly blue and a hard aged cheese all want different things underneath them, and putting all three on the same plain square is the reason a cheeseboard can taste monotonous long before anybody is full. The published ingredient list also includes poppy seeds and sesame.
This is a 300g selection box carrying eight varieties, which is stated on the pack and is the whole reason the box exists. We do not list which eight here.
Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Serving, storage and the cheese matches are set out in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Jacob's
Jacob's is a long-established name in British and Irish cracker baking, and the cream cracker is the shape the company is best known for. Biscuits for Cheese is the assortment end of that range: rather than a single variety in bulk, it puts a spread of shapes, textures and grains in one box so that a cheeseboard can be built properly. That is a different job from a workhorse pack.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
What You Are Actually Buying
- Weight: three hundred grams.
- Eight varieties: stated on the pack. Which eight, and in what proportion, is printed on the current box.
- Contains gluten: these are wheat crackers and are not suitable for a coeliac diet.
- What it is not: not a workhorse pack for soup and not a snacking cracker for a lunchbox. It is a board box, bought for an occasion and opened in front of people.
Ideal Serving Conditions
Crackers do not go off so much as go soft, and the enemy is humidity rather than time. A selection box is more exposed to that than a single-variety pack, because you open it for a board, take four things out of it and put it back with the inner wrap no longer sealed. Pinch the wrap closed, fold it over, and put the box somewhere dry rather than beside the kettle. A cracker that has gone soft will come back with five minutes in a low oven, spread out on a tray, then cooled completely flat before it goes near cheese.
The Cheeseboard Serve
- Match the cracker to the cheese: the plainest, driest shapes under the strongest cheeses; the ones with more character alongside a mild white. That is what the eight varieties are for.
- Cracker down, cheese on top: and assembled at the table rather than in advance. Cheese puts moisture into a cracker within minutes, and a board built early is a board of soft crackers.
- Do not butter them: a cheese cracker has been baked dry on purpose. Butter fills the space the cheese is meant to occupy.
- Put out more than you think: people eat crackers faster than cheese, and a board that runs out of cracker halfway is the usual failure.
The Tea Tray Serve
- With a strong black tea: a plain cracker and a piece of hard cheese with a proper builder's brew is one of the more sensible things you can eat at four in the afternoon, and the tannin cuts the fat cleanly.
- With coffee, carefully: a plain dry cracker works beside black coffee. A strongly seasoned one does not, so take the quieter shapes from the box for this.
- As a savoury course: after a sweet pudding, with the last of the wine, in the way a cheese course is meant to work.
- Do not dunk them: unlike a sweet biscuit, a dry savoury cracker collapses rather than softens, and there is nothing in it that wants to be in your tea.
Getting It Right with a Hot Drink
- Pairing: strong black tea, a plain breakfast blend, black filter coffee, or nothing at all beside a glass of something.
- Avoid: milky sweetened coffees and dessert teas, which fight a savoury cracker rather than meeting it.
- Dunking: no. This is the one biscuit-shaped thing on our shelf that we would tell you to keep out of the cup.
- Storage: dry, sealed and away from steam. Reseal the inner wrap properly or move the remainder to a tin.
- Best with: a cheeseboard, a cheese course, Christmas, or a Sunday evening when nobody wants to cook.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese 8 Variety Cracker Selection, 300g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Jacob's
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
Our commitment to the planet
Sourcing and packaging details are printed on the current UK pack; the brand page carries the fuller story.
The taste profile
How does it compare
Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese 8 Variety Cracker Selection, 300g is a board box rather than a snacking pack, and the eight shapes are there so different cheeses can each sit on something suited to them. Five builds below cover the proper board, a four o'clock cheese plate with tea, reviving a box that has gone soft, loaded crackers for a crowd and a savoury crumb crust.
Made with this tea
The Proper Cheeseboard
How to make The Proper Cheeseboard with Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese.
- 1 box Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese
- 3 cheeses: one soft, one blue, one hard
- 1 crisp apple, sliced late
- A small bunch of grapes
- A spoonful of chutney
- Take the cheese out of the fridge an hour before, and leave the crackers in the sealed wrap until the last minute.
- Sort the box by character: the plainest, driest shapes go beside the blue and the hard cheese, the ones with seeds or grain go beside the soft white.
- Put the crackers out dry, in their own pile, not under the cheese.
- Slice the apple at the table so it does not brown, and let people build their own.
What you'll end up with: A board where every cracker still snaps, because nothing was assembled in advance. That is the whole trick.
The Four O'Clock Cheese Plate
How to make The Four O'Clock Cheese Plate with Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese.
- 4 of the plainer crackers from the box
- A wedge of hard cheese
- 1 mug of strong black tea
- A little pickle or chutney
- Brew a builder's brew or a plain breakfast blend and leave it strong. The tannin is doing the same job a dry red wine would.
- Take the quietest shapes out of the box and leave the seasoned ones for the board.
- Cut the cheese thicker than you think and put it on the cracker at the plate, not in the kitchen.
- Keep the crackers out of the mug. They collapse rather than soften, and they put salt into the tea.
What you'll end up with: The most underrated plate in the house: cheese, a dry cracker and a strong cup, and nothing sweet anywhere near it.
Reviving a Box That Has Gone Soft
How to make Reviving a Box That Has Gone Soft with Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese.
- The soft remainder of the box
- A low oven at 140°C
- A flat baking tray
- Spread the crackers in a single layer on a tray, not overlapping.
- Bake at 140°C for 5 minutes. You are driving moisture out, not colouring them, so watch rather than time them.
- Cool them completely flat on a rack. This step is the one people skip and it is the one that matters.
- Serve at once, because a revived cracker starts taking moisture back as soon as it is in the room.
What you'll end up with: The snap back, from a box you were about to throw out. Crackers go soft long before they go stale.
Loaded Crackers for a Crowd
How to make Loaded Crackers for a Crowd with Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese.
- 24 crackers from the box
- 200g soft cheese
- Cherry tomatoes, halved
- Olives or pickled walnuts
- Chives or parsley
- Lay the crackers out on a board in rows and pick the sturdier shapes, because a topping is heavier than it looks.
- Spread the soft cheese on no more than ten minutes before they are eaten. Any earlier and they soften from the middle out.
- Top each one, alternating tomato and olive so the board reads as two colours rather than a jumble.
- Scatter chopped herbs over the lot and take it straight out.
What you'll end up with: Canapes in a quarter of an hour. The ten-minute rule is the difference between crisp and sad.
Savoury Cracker Crumb Crust
How to make Savoury Cracker Crumb Crust with Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese.
- 100g crackers from the box, crushed
- 50g butter, melted
- 40g hard cheese, grated
- A little thyme or black pepper
- Crush the crackers in a bag with a rolling pin. Leave it rubbly rather than fine, because the texture is the point.
- Stir in the melted butter, the grated cheese and the pepper until it clumps in your hand.
- Tip it over a fish pie, a cauliflower cheese or a baked vegetable dish in an even layer.
- Bake at 190°C for 20 to 25 minutes until it is properly golden and crisp on top.
What you'll end up with: A use for the last soft crackers in the box, and a better crust than breadcrumbs give because the salt is already in it.
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Typical values per 100g, as published | Per 100g |
|---|---|
| Energy | 477 kcal |
| Fat | 20.2g |
| of which saturates | 9.4g |
| Carbohydrate | 63g |
| of which sugars | 6.1g |
| Fibre | 3.7g |
| Protein | 9g |
| Salt | 1.4g |
Ingredients and allergens. Per the published ingredient list for this barcode it contains wheat and barley (gluten), milk and sesame, and it may contain egg, mustard, nuts and soya. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.
Ingredients, as published for this barcode: Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Vegetable Oil (Palm), Sugar, Wheatgerm, Salt, Dried Powdered Cheese (Milk), Barley, Barley Malt Extract, Wheat Starch, Glucose Syrup, Raising Agents (Ammonium Bicarbonate, Sodium Bicarbonate, Disodium Diphosphate), Sesame Seeds, Dried Whey (Milk), Dried Autolysed Yeast, Natural Flavouring [Dried Yeast Extract, Potassium Chloride, Dried Cheese (Milk), Maltodextrin, Natural Flavourings, Dried Whey (Milk), Vegetable Oils (Coconut, Rapeseed)], Black Pepper, Natural Flavourings, Acid (Lactic Acid), Malted Barley Flour, Emulsifier (E472e), Yeast, Poppy Seeds.
Ingredient and nutrition data for this barcode: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. The pack in your hands is the final word.
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|
Pack: Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese 8 Variety Cracker Selection, 300g; eight cracker varieties in one box for a cheeseboard. Store dry, sealed and away from steam, and pinch the inner wrap shut once opened. Read the net weight, the variety list, the cracker count, the ingredient list, the allergen advice and the best-before date off the current UK pack.
Characterising components shown. The sensory placements are our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description.
Sourcing & blend. Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese 8 Variety Cracker Selection, 300g is made by Jacob's, a long-established name in British and Irish cracker baking best known for the cream cracker. Biscuits for Cheese is the assortment end of that range: instead of one variety in bulk it puts a spread of shapes, textures and grains in a single box so a board can be built properly, which is a different job from a workhorse pack.
What's in Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese 8 Variety Cracker Selection, 300g, and what isn't:
- In: eight varieties of savoury wheat cracker in a 300g box, intended for cheese rather than for snacking.
- Contains gluten: these are wheat crackers and the box is not suitable for a coeliac diet.
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Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Jacob's Biscuits for Cheese 8 Variety Cracker Selection, 300g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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