Nairn's Gluten Free Biscuit Breaks - Oats & Fruit, 160g

Nairn's Gluten Free Oats & Fruit Biscuit Breaks is an oat biscuit with dried fruit through it, made by the Scottish oat baker and labelled gluten free on the pack. Biscuit Breaks is the name Nairn's gives its portioned line, and at one hundred and sixty grams this is a working biscuit rather than a tin one: the sort that goes in a bag, sits in a desk drawer, or gets eaten standing up with a mug of tea at eleven o'clock. The published ingredient list also includes currants.

The Story Behind Nairn's

Nairn's is a Scottish oat baker, and oats are not a line in its range but the whole basis of it. That matters commercially as well as texturally: because oats are not a gluten-containing grain, an oat baker is better placed than a wheat baker to put a gluten-free biscuit on the shelf, and Nairn's has built a good part of its business on exactly that.

It is worth being precise about what gluten free means on an oat product. Oats do not naturally contain gluten, but they are so routinely grown, harvested and milled alongside wheat, barley and rye that ordinary oats cannot be sold as gluten free. A gluten-free oat product uses oats kept separate the whole way through, which is a supply-chain job rather than a recipe one.

Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.

What You Are Actually Buying

• Weight: one hundred and sixty grams.
• Fruit in pockets: the dried fruit is the sweet element and it is not evenly distributed, which is the nature of a fruited biscuit rather than a fault.
• What it is not: not a chocolate biscuit and not a tin biscuit for guests. It is a plain, useful, everyday one.

Ideal Serving Conditions

This is the easiest biscuit in the range to serve and the hardest to get wrong. It does not melt, it does not bloom, it does not need a cool plate, and it is not ruined by a warm kitchen. What it does need is a decent drink, because a plain oat biscuit gives a drink room to be noticed.

The Tea Tray Serve

• Any strength of tea: builder's, a lighter Ceylon or a plain breakfast blend all work. Oats are neutral enough not to fight the cup, and mild enough not to be flattened by it.
• The full dunk: four seconds is fine and five is usually safe. The open oat crumb takes liquid without disintegrating, which is the main practical advantage of an oat biscuit.
• Two per mug: they are substantial, and the fruit makes them more filling than they look.
• No plate needed: this is a standing-up-in-the-kitchen biscuit and it is better for not being fussed over.

The Coffee and Breakfast Serve

• With a milky coffee: a latte or a flat white works well, because the oat note and the milk sit naturally together.
• With fruit tea or rooibos: a fruit infusion picks up the dried fruit in the biscuit, and rooibos brings a soft sweetness without caffeine.
• Crumbled over yoghurt: break one over thick yoghurt for something between a biscuit and a breakfast.
• In a bag: it travels better than any chocolate biscuit we list, because there is nothing on it to melt.

Getting It Right with a Hot Drink

• Pairing: builder's tea, breakfast blends, rooibos, fruit infusions, milky coffee.
• Avoid: nothing in particular, which is unusual. A very delicate green tea is the only cup this would slightly overrule.
• Dunking: yes, and confidently. Four seconds, and the crumb holds.
• Storage: cool, dry and sealed. An oat biscuit goes soft rather than stale and loses its texture before it loses its flavour, so reseal the pack properly.
• Best with: mid-morning tea, a desk drawer, a lunchbox or a walk.