A chocolate biscuit is a

biscuit A biscuit is a flour-based baked and shaped food product. In most countries biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be ...

(

cookie A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, n ...

) which is covered in

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...

, or which has been made by replacing some of the flour with

cocoa powder Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

. Chocolate biscuits are quite popular in places all over the world, particularly the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. The composition and recipe may vary considerably and there is often legislation to specify how the biscuit may be described. In the United Kingdom, a biscuit made without an external coating may only be described as "chocolate" if it contains at least 3% of dry

cocoa solids Dry cocoa solids are the components of cocoa beans remaining after cocoa butter, the fatty component of the bean, is extracted from chocolate liquor, roasted cocoa beans that have been ground into a liquid state. Cocoa butter is 46% to 57% of the ...

. If there is a coating, this must contain

cocoa butter Cocoa butter, also called theobroma oil, is a pale-yellow, edible fat extracted from the cocoa bean. It is used to make chocolate, as well as some ointments, toiletries, and pharmaceuticals. Cocoa butter has a cocoa flavor and aroma. Its melti ...

as the fat to be described as chocolate, rather than just "chocolate-flavoured". In 1891, the

Cadbury Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company fully owned by Mondelez International (originally Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Mar ...

brothers filed a patent for a chocolate-coated biscuit.

Tax

The exact structure and composition is significant in determining the taxation applicable in the United Kingdom as valued-added tax (VAT). The general principle is that luxury foods such as

confectionery Confectionery is the art of making confections, which are food items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categories ...

are taxable, while basic foodstuffs are not. Case law and rulings have determined that a chocolate-covered biscuit such as a

chocolate digestive A digestive biscuit, sometimes described as a sweet-meal biscuit, is a semi-sweet biscuit that originated in Scotland. The digestive was first developed in 1839 by two Scottish doctors to aid digestion. The term ''digestive'' is derived from the ...

Kit Kat Kit Kat (stylised as KitKat in various countries) is a chocolate-covered wafer bar confection created by Rowntree's of York, United Kingdom, and is now produced globally by Nestlé (which acquired Rowntree's in 1988), except in the United Stat ...

is taxable while a chocolate-chip cookie or

Jaffa cake Jaffa Cakes are a cake introduced by McVitie and Price in the UK in 1927 and named after Jaffa oranges. The most common form of Jaffa cakes are circular, in diameter and have three layers: a Genoise sponge base, a layer of orange flavoured ...

is not.

References

Biscuits Chocolate-covered foods Chocolate confectionery {{dessert-stub