Biscuit Trivia
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36 free Biscuit trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Britain takes its biscuits seriously enough to have argued in a tax tribunal over whether a Jaffa Cake is one, and to have handed a physicist an award for working out how to dunk. Every biscuit in the tin has a story, and most are stranger than you would guess. The 36 questions cover the big makers and where they started, the origins of the digestive, the custard cream, the Bourbon, the Jammie Dodger and the Wagon Wheel, the nicknames biscuits picked up along the way, the science of dunking, and a handful of favourites from Australia, New Zealand, India and the Continent. It suits a pub quiz, a tea break or a family round, with instant answers and a one-line explanation for each. Play on your phone or print it for the table.
30 of 36 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The chocolate sandwich biscuit called the Bourbon takes its name from what?
A dynasty of French kings
A dynasty of French kings: the House of Bourbon also lent its name, probably via a Kentucky county or a New Orleans street, to bourbon whiskey.
Q 02Samuel Pepys's Royal Navy rations gave each sailor a pound of ship's biscuit a day and a gallon of what?
Beer
Beer: the ship's biscuit was so hard that sailors often soaked it in beer, water or whatever liquid was to hand before eating it.
Q 03Which biscuit has currants pressed between two thin oblongs of dough, earning it the nickname 'squashed fly'?
Garibaldi
The Garibaldi is named after Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian revolutionary who made a popular visit to Britain in 1854.
Q 04Which oat biscuit did McVitie's launch in 1985, adding a chocolate-coated version two years later?
Hobnob
The Hobnob, a flapjack-digestive hybrid of rolled oats, sold so fast that the chocolate version followed in 1987; its ancestor was a Victorian bake called the Colchester Priory Biscuit.
Q 05The baroque swirls stamped on a custard cream are said to depict which plant?
Ferns
Ferns: the swirls are said to echo the Victorian fern craze, though the biscuit itself dates from 1908 or 1913.
Q 06Which Berkshire town, home of Huntley & Palmers, was nicknamed 'biscuit town', with its football team the 'biscuit men'?
Reading
Reading's biscuit-making ended in 1976, when Huntley & Palmers stopped production in the town.
Q 07McVitie's traces its name to a biscuit maker established in 1830 on Rose Street in which city?
Edinburgh
Edinburgh's Rose Street bakery grew into McVitie & Price, where Alexander Grant created the McVitie's digestive in 1892.
Q 08The Jacob's biscuit factory in Dublin was among the buildings seized by rebels during which event?
The Easter Rising
The Easter Rising garrison at Jacob's saw little fighting, since British troops never stormed the factory, and its commander Thomas MacDonagh was later executed.
Q 09Which Jacob's bar ran the 1970s jingle 'If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our…'?
Club
Club started out as the Club Milk in Dublin just before the First World War, advertised with playing-card clubs, each bar wrapped in foil and then paper.
Q 10Physicist Len Fisher's work on the best way to dunk a biscuit earned him which tongue-in-cheek award in 1999?
Ig Nobel Prize
Ig Nobel Prize: Fisher's team found that a biscuit dunked in a hot drink can release up to ten times more flavour.
Q 11Speculaas, the spiced Low Countries biscuit, is traditionally eaten around whose early-December feast day?
Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas, Sinterklaas in Dutch, gives the season its name, and a speculaas 'suitor's doll' was once handed over as a declaration of love during the festivities.
Q 12Which Indian biscuit did a 2011 Nielsen survey rank the world's best-selling biscuit brand?
Parle-G
Parle-G: Parle baked its first biscuit in 1939, and the brand's G stood for glucose until a later campaign recast it as 'Genius'.
Q 13The rows of tiny holes punched into a Bourbon biscuit are there to do what while it bakes?
Let steam escape
Q 21In Spain, which plain biscuit is traditionally laid on top of a bowl of natillas custard?
Marie
Marie biscuits were created by Peek Freans in 1874 to celebrate Russia's Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna marrying into the British royal family.
Q 22In 1891 a London salesman persuaded McVitie's to make which plain biscuit smaller to suit southern tastes?
Rich Tea
Rich Tea biscuits went into the chocolate groom's cake Prince William chose for his 2011 wedding.
Q 23In Shetland tradition, a decorated shortbread cake was broken over whose head?
A new bride
A new bride had it broken over her head at the threshold of her new home; shortbread was so costly it was kept for weddings, Christmas and Hogmanay.
Let steam escape: that stops steam building up inside, so the biscuit comes out sturdier.
Q 14The Empire biscuit, Scottish jam-filled shortbread under icing, shed which nationality from its name in the Great War?
German
German biscuit became an awkward name after 1914, so bakers rebranded it for the Empire; it descends from the Austrian Linzer Augen, which has cut-out 'eyes' in the top layer instead of icing.
Q 15New Zealand's Afghan biscuit, iced with chocolate and topped with half a walnut, gets its crunch from which cereal?
Cornflakes
Cornflakes give the crunch, and in 2020 New Zealand biscuit maker Griffin's dropped the Afghan name for its version.
Q 16In the United States the word 'biscuit' means a fluffy quick bread closest to which British bake?
A scone
A scone is the nearest British match, which is why Americans say 'cookie' and 'cracker' for what Britain calls biscuits; Canadians sometimes call the bread a 'tea biscuit' to tell them apart.
Q 17Carr's of Carlisle lost which honour for its water biscuits in 2012, put down to 'changing tastes'?
Its royal warrant
Its royal warrant had been on the packaging since Jonathan Dodgson Carr won one in 1841, so the firm promptly swapped the royal arms for the coat of arms of Carlisle.
Q 18What does a Jaffa Cake do when it goes stale, a point that helped a 1991 VAT tribunal rule it a cake?
It goes hard
It goes hard: stale cakes harden while biscuits soften, and the ruling that Jaffa Cakes are cakes kept them free of VAT.
Q 19Fox's Biscuits, maker of Party Rings and Rocky bars, began in 1853 in a terraced house in which Yorkshire town?
Batley
Batley's Fox's, started in a terraced house, was bought in 2020 by Nutella maker Ferrero.
Q 20Arnott's, the Australian firm behind Tim Tams, was founded in 1865 in which New South Wales city?
Newcastle
Newcastle is where Arnott's started, and the firm's Tim Tam is named after a horse that won the Kentucky Derby.
Q 24The Abernethy biscuit, a surgeon's digestive aid, is flavoured with which seed prized for fighting flatulence?
Caraway
Caraway and sugar turned a plain captain's biscuit into the Abernethy, named after a surgeon who blamed most disease on poor digestion.
Q 25Tunnock's, maker of the red-and-gold foil Caramel Wafer, has been based since 1890 in which Lanarkshire town?
Uddingston
Uddingston is where Thomas Tunnock bought a baker's shop in Lorne Place in 1890; the firm is still in family hands, and in 2022 it wrapped the local rugby posts like Caramel Wafers.
Q 26Which Nabisco biscuit was launched as a copy of Sunshine's Hydrox, first sold in 1908?
Oreo
Oreo: the Manhattan factory complex where Nabisco first baked it now houses Chelsea Market.
Q 27Bahlsen's Leibniz butter biscuit is named after a philosopher whose only link to it was living in which city?
Hanover
Hanover is where Bahlsen is based and where Leibniz lived, and naming foods after famous people was common practice when the biscuit launched in 1891.
Q 28Jammie Dodgers turned up repeatedly in Doctor Who during the era of which Doctor?
The Eleventh
The Eleventh Doctor's run made the biscuit a running gag; off screen it is a linzer-style shortcake that Australia's Arnott's echoes with its Raspberry Shortcake.
Q 29Walkers Shortbread, sold worldwide in tartan boxes, is baked in which Speyside village?
Aberlour
Aberlour's original village shop is where Walker's has long tested every new product before wider sale.
Q 30Which prime minister admitted in 1924 that McVitie's boss Alexander Grant had given him a Daimler and company shares?
Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald's old friend Grant also gave £100,000 towards the National Library of Scotland.