Stockan's Thick Oatcakes (L), 200g
Orkney bakes its oatcakes differently from the mainland, and the L on this box is a size grade rather than a flourish: it is the large one in a range that also runs smaller and thinner. Thickness up there was never a style decision. Wheat grows badly that far north, an oatcake stood in for bread, and a thing standing in for bread needs some depth to it. That history also explains why it disappoints anyone eating it the way they would eat a cracker. Dry and unbuttered this is genuinely plain, and the middling scores it carries come almost entirely from people who tried it once, that way, and put the box down. Give it butter, or a hard cheese, or set it beside soup where it holds its shape instead of dissolving into it, and a different product turns up: oatmeal has a slow toasted sweetness that only arrives once there is fat next to it. Oats are not wheat, but nothing on this pack is a gluten-free claim, and a coeliac household needs a box that makes one.
Stockan's Thick Oatcakes (L), in brief.
Stockan's Thick Oatcakes are the substantial end of the oatcake shelf, 200g from an Orkney oatcake name, picked into the Teas.co.uk curator selection as the one that eats like bread rather than like a biscuit.
Thick is structural, not a boast: enough biscuit to take a proper wedge of cheddar without folding, and the right thing beside a bowl of soup. Decant into a tin on day one. If they go soft, six or seven minutes in a low oven brings the snap back.
What the thickness changes is worth setting out, because it decides almost everything about how you use them.
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. Common questions are answered in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Stockan's
Stockan's is one of the oatcake names associated with Orkney, where the oatcake is an everyday bread rather than a cheeseboard accessory. That difference in the home tradition shows in the biscuit: an Orkney-style oatcake is built to be buttered and eaten as part of a meal, not to be handed round in a circle after dinner. Treat it as bread and it makes immediate sense.
All of it is printed on the current pack.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
What You Are Actually Buying
- Weight: two hundred grams, according to the published pack listing.
- Thick, and meaning it: more crumb and more bite than a standard oatcake, closer to bread than to a cracker, which changes what you put on it and how many you eat.
- What it is not: not a delicate canape base. If you want something that disappears under smoked salmon, a fine oatcake does that job better.
Ideal Serving Conditions
Think bread rather than biscuit and the serving looks after itself. A thick oatcake wants butter more than it wants a topping, and it rewards good butter in a way a thin one cannot, because there is enough biscuit underneath to carry a proper layer without the fat being the whole mouthful.
At the Table
- Butter them properly: soften the butter first. Cold butter dragged across any oatcake breaks it, and there is no rescuing a broken one.
- Cheese in a wedge, not a smear: the thickness exists so you can put a real piece of cheese on it. Cut the cheese thick and let the biscuit do its job.
- Beside soup: this is where a thick oatcake beats bread. It holds up next to a bowl, it does not go doughy, and it adds texture instead of bulk.
- Do not build them early: an oatcake starts absorbing the moment something wet sits on it, and thickness buys you minutes rather than hours.
The Storage Rules
- Into a tin on day one: the opened pack is not airtight and an oatcake has very little sugar to hold its own moisture and no coating to seal the surface.
- Away from the kettle: the air above a kettle is the most humid in the house, which makes the shelf beside it the worst place in the kitchen for anything crisp.
- Thickness cuts both ways: a thick oatcake takes longer to go soft than a thin one because moisture has further to travel, and it takes longer to bring back for the same reason. Give it a couple of extra minutes in the oven.
- Refresh them if they go soft: six or seven minutes in a low oven at about 150C, then a few minutes cooling on a rack, drives the moisture back out and restores the snap. It works because there is nothing coated to melt.
Getting It Right with a Hot Drink
- Buttered, with strong tea: a thick oatcake and a brisk Assam-led breakfast blend is the traditional pairing and it still works. There is enough oat here to need something with real body beside it.
- Avoid: sweet and fruit infusions, which fight a savoury oat bake and fight cheese harder still.
- Dunking: no, and thickness does not save it. There is no sugar and no coating holding the structure together and it goes from crisp to sludge in seconds.
- Best with: good salted butter, a strong cheddar, soup, smoked fish, or a breakfast where toast would be too soft.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Stockan's Thick Oatcakes (L), 200g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Stockan'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
This is a thick oatcake that behaves more like bread than like a cracker, so the builds below treat it as bread: buttered, beside a bowl, under a real wedge of cheese, and put to work when it has gone past its best. The cards are the buttered oatcake, the soup side, the proper cheese wedge, the smoked fish plate, the tin and the oven refresh.
Made with this tea
Buttered, and Done Properly
The oldest use there is, and the one a thick oatcake is actually built for.
- 2 or 3 Stockan's Thick Oatcakes
- Good salted butter, softened
- Black pepper, if you like
- Soften the butter out of the fridge first. Cold butter dragged across an oatcake breaks it.
- Spread a proper layer, not a scrape. The thickness is there so the biscuit can carry it.
- Eat straight away, while the butter is still sitting on top rather than soaking in.
What you'll end up with: A snack that eats like good bread and takes five minutes less to make.
Beside a Bowl of Soup
Where a thick oatcake beats bread outright, and the one rule that matters.
- 4 thick oatcakes
- A bowl of thick soup
- Grated cheddar, to scatter
- Keep them beside the bowl, never crumbled in. They turn to paste in seconds.
- Scatter the cheese on the soup rather than on the oatcake, so the biscuit stays dry.
- Break each one as you eat it, and let the soup do the moistening at the last moment.
What you'll end up with: Texture beside the bowl instead of bulk, and no doughy bread.
A Proper Wedge of Cheddar
Stop slicing the cheese thin. This biscuit was built for the other approach.
- Stockan's Thick Oatcakes
- A strong mature cheddar
- A crisp apple, sliced
- Chutney, at the table
- Cut the cheese in wedges rather than slices. The resistance of a biscuit to bending rises sharply with its depth, and this one can take it.
- Bring the cheese to room temperature an hour ahead. The oatcakes stay in the tin.
- Add the apple for acidity and keep the chutney on the side.
- Build each one at the table, never in advance.
What you'll end up with: Cheese in a proper piece, on a biscuit that does not fold under it.
The Smoked Fish Plate
A ten-minute lunch that asks nothing of the cook.
- 6 thick oatcakes
- Smoked mackerel or hot-smoked salmon
- Cream cheese or creme fraiche
- Lemon, horseradish and black pepper
- Mash the fish into the soft cheese with horseradish, lemon and pepper.
- Spread it onto the oatcakes at the table, not in the kitchen.
- Thickness buys you minutes against a wet topping, not hours, so do not get ahead of yourself.
What you'll end up with: A proper lunch off one plate, still crisp when you finish it.
The Tin, On Day One
How to keep an oatcake crisp for longer than a fortnight.
- Stockan's Thick Oatcakes
- An airtight tin
- Decant the whole pack on the day you open it. The cut sleeve is not airtight.
- Store in a cool dry cupboard, and not on the shelf beside the kettle.
- Thickness slows the staling down; it does not stop it. The tin still matters.
What you'll end up with: Oatcakes that still snap when the pack is nearly empty.
The Oven Refresh, Thick Version
Same trick as any uncoated biscuit, with one adjustment for the depth.
- Softened thick oatcakes
- An oven at 150C
- A cooling rack
- Lay them in a single layer on a baking tray.
- Bake six or seven minutes at about 150C, a little longer than a thin oatcake needs, because the moisture has further to travel out.
- Cool on a rack, not in the tin. A thick biscuit holds more steam to give back.
What you'll end up with: The snap back, and a tin you did not have to throw out.
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Depth of the biscuit | Thick, by the product's own name | The variable that matters most here and the reason to choose this line. More crumb between your teeth, enough structure to take a wedge of cheese, and slower to go soft than a thin oatcake because moisture has further to travel. |
| Salt | Printed on the current pack | The lift. Salt clears the palate where sugar coats it, which is why a savoury oatcake leaves you ready for the next mouthful rather than dulled to it. |
| Fat | Printed on the current pack | An oat bake holds together through starch and fat rather than through a gluten network, which is what gives an oatcake its short, clean break. The type and quantity are declared on the pack. |
Ingredients and allergens. Per the published ingredient list for this barcode it contains wheat and oats (gluten). Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.
Ingredient and nutrition data for this barcode: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. The pack in your hands is the final word.
Pack: Stockan's Thick Oatcakes (L), 200g; thick-cut savoury oatcakes, GTIN 05015168000026. Store cool, dark and airtight, and decant into a tin the day you open it, because an oatcake has little sugar to hold moisture and no coating to seal it. Read the ingredient list, the allergen advice, the gluten statement, the oatcake count and the best-before date off the current UK pack.
Characterising components shown. The account of an oat bake setting through starch and fat rather than through a gluten network, and of a thicker biscuit exchanging moisture with the air more slowly than a thin one, is general food knowledge offered as context rather than a statement about this recipe. The sensory placements are our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description; we have held no tastings and hold no brand specification sheets.
Sourcing & blend. Stockan's Thick Oatcakes (L), 200g carries the Stockan's name, one of the oatcake names associated with Orkney, where the oatcake is closer to an everyday bread than to a cheeseboard accessory. The thickness is the deliberate choice in this line and it is what separates it from the thin and fine oatcakes on the same shelf.
What's in Stockan's Thick Oatcakes (L), 200g, and what isn't:
- In: thick-cut savoury oatcakes in a 200g pack, the full declaration printed on the box.
- No sweet coating and no filling: a plain savoury bake, which is why it carries butter and cheese well and why it will not survive a dunk.
- No health claim: oats attract a great deal of loose talk. We claim no benefit of any kind and quote no fibre, salt, fat or calorie figure.
Asked about this product
Ask the curator
Send a product question through the contact form; replies usually come within one working day.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Stockan's Thick Oatcakes (L), 200g, please cite teas.co.uk.
What buyers say
No customer reviews of Stockan's Thick Oatcakes (L), 200g yet.
Bought this from us? Log in to your account, then come back to this page to review it. Only verified buyers can review, and every review is checked before it appears; approved reviews earn 50 reward points.
Other Biscuits worth comparing
