When you’re living in a house full of boys, concealing the stash of festive treats can be quite a challenge – particularly during Christmas. I’ve been stashing away selection tubs, chocolate Santas and biscuit boxes at the back of our pantry for weeks to keep them out of sight.
However, there’s nothing more enjoyable than opening a box of chocolate biscuits while watching some festive TV or film with the family on or after Christmas Day. If you’re somewhat of a biscuit selection box aficionado, you would have noticed the endless supply of nearly identical looking boxes of chocolate biscuits in all supermarkets over the past few months.
There are brands like Fox’s and McVitie’s, but supermarkets also offer their own-brand versions. It’s really difficult to determine which ones are the best to purchase!
But don’t fret, it was a tough task – and someone had to undertake it.
A reporter from our sister site Birmingham Live gathered six chocolate biscuit selection boxes from Tesco, Aldi, Morrisons, Marks and Spencer, Waitrose and Lidl to put them through the ultimate test. Here’s how they performed in terms of taste, texture, bake, presentation and price, reports the Manchester Evening News.
Waitrose Christmas Chocolate Biscuit Selection
£5 at Waitrose
To me, Waitrose’s packing stood out the most as it was completely different to the others with the green packaging. The box states they are ‘made with love’ and includes ‘rich, crunchy biscuits with an indulgently thick chocolate coating’.
Waitrose’s Christmas Chocolate Biscuit Selection cost us £5 – the second most expensive of the six I managed to pick up. But would the price reflect quality? I counted 11 varieties of biscuits inside the box.
There’s two types of dark chocolate biscuit, eight milk chocolate and just the one white chocolate biscuit. There’s also an orange cream and vanilla cream flavoured biscuit in there too.
There’s the old faithful regency in there too! I counted a total of 26 biscuits inside.
Lidl Favorina Extremely Chocolatey Biscuit Selection
£4.49 at Lidl
Lidl’s choccie biscuit selection was the second cheapest – but only by 1p compared to Tesco and Morrisons. I expected them to be slightly cheaper however and more match Aldi’s prices.
The box was a lovely festive red colour with ‘season’s greetings’ on the front – with images of all the biscuits inside on the front. A description on the back of the box reads: “A decadent selection of all your teatime biscuit favourites, generously coated in milk, dark and white chocolate.”
Same as Waitrose, there was 11 varieties of biscuit inside. There’s again – two dark chocolate, one white chocolate and eight milk chocolate biscuits. We’ve also got orange and vanilla flavours too – I’m sensing a theme.
And again, there’s 26 biscuits inside!
Aldi Belmont Biscuits Extremely Chocolatey Milk Chocolate Biscuits
£3.99 at Aldi
Now Aldi was the cheapest of the lot at just £3.99 – bargain right? It has increased from the £3.49 I paid in 2023 though. However, I did have one big disappointment. Every Aldi store I visited I could only find a milk chocolate biscuit selection box.
I know previously they did a mix with dark and white chocolate in there too – but they were no where to be seen for me this year. But again, it still had most the same biscuits on offer as in the other boxes – just no dark or white chocolate.
It was the start of a long theme though – a blue box with images of the biscuits. Just a different brand name.
However this time there was only nine varieties of biscuits – and all of the milk chocolate kind. They still had your standard Viennese finger, chocolate ring and regency though. And those orange and vanilla flavours.
And there was only 25 biscuits in the box – one less than all the others so far.
Tesco Extremely Chocolatey Biscuit Selection
£4.50 at Tesco
Tesco’s chocolate biscuits were in a festive red box similar to Lidl. In fact, the box looked pretty bang on with Lidl, even with a near-identical photo of the biscuits displayed on a black plate.
Tesco’s cost £4.50 – an increase of 50p compared to last year. The box reads: “A carefully chosen selection of biscuits smothered in smooth chocolate.”
Again there’s 11 varieties of biscuits inside Tesco’s box. And again, two dark chocolate, one white chocolate and eight of the milk chocolate variety. I’m not feeling the love for white chocolate biscuits.
And, you guessed it, there’s 26 biscuits inside the box.
Morrisons Milk, Dark and White Chocolate Biscuit Selection
£4.50 at Morrisons
Next up was Morrisons which was the same price as Tesco at £4.50. But again, a 50p increase on last year.
Again the box was the same colour blue with a little bit of gold decor and an image of each biscuit, but nothing too much. The box reads: “A delicious assortment of milk, dark and white chocolate coated biscuits.”
Inside there’s 11 varieties of biscuits. Are you noticing a pattern? There’s two dark chocolate, eight milk chocolate and one white chocolate. Yes there’s that pattern again.
Does anyone want to hazard a guess at how many biscuits are inside? Yes 26. They might even come from the same factory at this rate.
M&S Outrageously Chocolatey Milk, Dark and White Chocolate Biscuits
£5.50 at Marks and Spencer
Now as I had expected, Marks and Spencer was the most expensive of them all at £5.50. But only 50p more than Waitrose and £1 more than Tesco and Morrisons this year. However would they be worth the extra price?
The box was slightly bigger than the other five too. So would we get more biscuits? More variety?
The box was blue as all the others, and displayed photos of all the biscuits you get inside. It looked like a few new biscuits though compared to the others which had me excited. The box states: “More chocolate than biscuit.”
And I was right! There’s 12 varieties of biscuit in here. There was two dark chocolates, eight milk, one white and one marbled whirl!
I liked there was a few different options here. The Outrageously Chocolate Marbled Whirl was exciting for a start as these seem to have been cut from other boxes? We had a Honeycomb Cream and a Clementine Cream – little different to the vanilla and orange we’ve seen so far.
There’s only 24 biscuits in the box though – two of each kind. Slightly disappointing as it was the lowest in the comparison.
But which box stood up to the taste test? We picked four biscuits that featured in each box – to see which supermarket would be crowned king of the biscuits.
Milk chocolate regencies
It’s a staple in most chocolate biscuit boxes – the milk chocolate regency. Those recognisable ridges in the biscuits, you cant miss them.
It was called a Milk Chocolate Regency in Tesco, Aldi, Waitrose and Marks and Spencer. Morrisons went different with the Milk Chocolate Round. While Lidl named it the Milk Chocolate Shortcake Round.
They all looked very, very similar – particularly in size. The ridges were definitely more defined for MandS and Morrisons.
Lidl’s biscuit had a nice crunch with an even amount of chocolate to biscuit, while Marks and Spencer’s had really smooth chocolate with a sweet biscuit. We found the chocolate and biscuit quite bland for Morrisons.
Tesco had more biscuit than chocolate, but a nice crunch. Aldi’s crunch biscuit was good but the chocolate didn’t have such a nice taste, while Waitrose had a really smooth chunky layer of chocolate but the biscuit lacked flavour.
Ratings:
Waitrose 4/5
Lidl 3/5
Aldi 2/5
Tesco 3/5
Morrisons 1/5
Marks and Spencer 5/5
Viennese fingers
Each of the biscuit boxes also had a Viennese finger inside too – if not by a different name. They all called it the Milk Chocolate Viennese Finger – apart from MandS who simply stuck to Milk Chocolate Finger, while Waitrose called it a Milk Chocolate Biscuit Finger.
They all looked pretty identical too when popped next to one another on a plate. Milk chocolate coating with drizzles of dark chocolate. Some might have had less drizzle than others, but it was much of a muchness.
But how would they fare with taste? Morrisons definitely had a really good crunch, but there was more biscuit than chocolate. Tesco’s biscuit was quite soft compared to the others, but the chocolate had a really nice flavour.
The chocolate was quite thick over the Lidl biscuit, but lacked the taste and the biscuit lacked the crunch expected. Waitrose’s biscuit felt quite slim compared to the others and needed more chocolate – and found the biscuit to have a slight lemon taste to it.
Aldi’s biscuit was definitely much softer but there was a good amount of chocolate covering it. While we really enjoyed the MandS biscuit which again had a slight spicy taste to it!
Ratings:
Waitrose 3/5
Lidl 1/5
Aldi 4/5
Tesco 4/5
Morrisons 3/5
Marks and Spencer 4/5
Milk chocolate shortcake
While these look identical, their names couldn’t be anymore different with some supermarkets. Tesco went longwinded with the Milk Chocolate Ring With Dark Chocolate Decoration.
Morrisons simplified it for us all with Milk Chocolate Shortcake, and Lidl and Waitrose simply added ring to the end (Milk Chocolate Shortcake Ring) and MandS added biscuit instead (Milk Chocolate Shortcake Biscuit). While Aldi went fancy with Milk Chocolate Coronet Top.
All in all though, it is the same biscuit. And they look so identical they could be from the same box. I’m glad I’d noted down which was which.
We found that Morrisons didn’t have a great biscuit or chocolate flavour, while the biscuit for Lidl left a really strange after-taste. We felt Aldi needed a bit more chocolate to it to balance out the biscuit.
Tesco had a lovely sweet shortcake biscuit taste with nice chocolate. Marks and Spencer had a surprising spicy cinnamon taste to the biscuit which we really liked. While Waitrose lacked any real taste disappointingly.
Ratings:
Waitrose 0/5
Lidl 1/5
Aldi 3/5
Tesco 4/5
Morrisons 1/5
Marks and Spencer 4/5
Milk chocolate orange/clementine cram/sundae
And finally, despite having different names, there was an orange-flavoured milk chocolate biscuit in each. I would have liked to have compare a dark or white chocolate biscuit, but we’d have to leave Aldi out!
MandS called their version the Milk Chocolate Clementine Cream. Waitrose went with Milk Chocolate and Orange Cream Shortcake. Lidl went for the Milk Chocolate Orange Cream Sundae Flavour Biscuit.
Aldi’s was named the Milk Chocolate Orange Flavour Sundae, while Morrisons and Tesco simply called theirs the Milk Chocolate Orange Sundae.
They were all wrapped up in shiny gold wrappers perfect for Christmas, while MandS had a lovely orange (very fitting) wrapper around it. But once unwrapped, they all looked very similar – a smooth, round chocolate biscuit with hidden flavouring.
Tesco had a really strong orange flavour coming through with a nice amount of chocolate and biscuit, while Lidl didn’t really have a strong orange flavour to it at all. It also left a strange after-taste.
There was a strong orange flavour to Morrisons however there wasn’t enough biscuit inside the chocolate. We were really impressed by Aldi’s – strong all round with a lovely orange taste to it.
Waitrose was a real disappointment with little to no flavour to it. While Marks and Spencer’s taste a bit like a Terry’s Chocolate Orange which we loved!
Ratings:
Waitrose 1/5
Lidl 1/5
Aldi 5/5
Tesco 4/5
Morrisons 2/5
Marks and Spencer 5/5
Overall verdict
Collating all the scores together from the four taste-tests, these are the best supermarket chocolate biscuit selection boxes for Christmas:
Marks and Spencer 18/20
Tesco 15/20
Aldi 12/20
Waitrose 8/20
Morrisons 7/20
Lidl 6/20
Overall we much preferred the Marks and Spencer biscuits. Taking the price into account though, Tesco and Aldi scored pretty high too – and are more affordable options.
We liked having a little more variety in the MandS box too. But Aldi and MandS did have less biscuits in than Tesco – so it’s a tough call.
I was hopeful for Lidl with the cheaper price being so affordable for most this Christmas, but they just didn’t live up to the other biscuits, scoring low marks in all rounds. Waitrose and Morrisons had also been disappointing too.