Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Perforated biscuits

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When dunking circular biscuits (and please note that I am using the word "biscuit" in the English way, as a brittle baked item which is usually, though not necessarily, sweet), it often happens that the diameter of the biscuit is greater than that of the mug.

Advanced amateur dunkers, as well as professionals, tend to get around this problem by first breaking the biscuit in half. The ideal - as judged by the Greater London and Regional Biscuit Dunking Advisory Panel - is for the biscuit to break diametrically into two identical halves. Each half can then be dunked to the officially mandated 35% level.

However, snapping brittle items such as biscuits is never straightforward. Homogeneous, fine-grained biscuits such as digestives will generally (though not always) fracture satisfactorily. But coarse-grained biscuits such as the HobNob may have their fracture line diverted - or even branched - by local structural elements at the meso-scale. The result can be an unevenly fractured biscuit, where one part is still too large to dunk, and the other is too small for convenient dunkage. Worse yet, the biscuit may undergo catastrophic failure by breaking into three or more pieces, one of which will inevitably end up either in the beverage (a so-called "floating dunk", which leads to all sorts of problems) or on the floor.

A simple remedy to this serious problem exists. Biscuits which are both circular and large should be baked with a set of perforations across their diameter. To a limited extent, these will act as stress concentrators; but the inhomogeneity of the biscuit means that stress concentration cannot be depended on for reliable crack propagation. It will therefore be necessary to ensure that the perforations are sufficiently close-spaced, relative to their dimensions, to cause appreciable local weakening of the biscuit material. For safety, MaxCo. engineers recommend a perforation spacing of no more than 1.5x the hole diameter.

MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 17 2019

Biscuit_20hammer [hippo, Mar 18 2019]

Literally baked https://www.gettyim...otography/122012128
[pocmloc, Mar 18 2019]

Alternative solution https://isohedral.ca/little-dipper/
Possibly what 2fries was thinking of, but unfortunately no longer for sale. [Loris, Mar 18 2019]

Tangram_20Chocolate_20Bar [xenzag, Mar 22 2019]

[link]






       Yes, that's a popular strategy too. However, it can often result in an inadequate first dunk, making it almost impossible to get an adequate bite of biscuit that includes the right proportion of dunked and undunked biscuit. It can also lead to a preference for over-filled mugs.
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 17 2019
  

       I once saw a mug with an elongated indent on either side to fit any size of cookie or biscuit which made me chuckle but I can't find an image of it now so you'll have to take my word for it.   

       As long as the biscuit fits, the mug is neither half empty nor half full...   

       I don't know why this isn't done. Some prior art (stone- ground wheat crackers) is right there for the world to see. I would also like this done for other crackers, so as to make dipping (not to be confused with dunking) easier and more productive.
notexactly, Mar 18 2019
  

       Be sure to test the structural integrity of your biscuit before breaking it (see link).

Also - //it often happens that the diameter of the biscuit is greater than that of the mug// - I think you've identified your problem there. If you were adhering to commonly agreed ISO biscuit and mug standards this wouldn't happen.
hippo, Mar 18 2019
  

       //ISO biscuit and mug standards// Ah yes, but we live in an imperfect world. Standard chocolate digestives, for instance, seldom adhere to ISO standards (unless you leave them chocolate-side down in a warm place).   

       In the unlikely event that biscuit manufacturers do not immediately adopt this remedy, MaxCo.'s Consumer Product Development Team (Biscuit and Crossbow Division) is working on an appliance with a bank of 1.2mm drills that can create the necessary perforations in all but the hardest of biscuits.
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 18 2019
  

       I invented a new mug for you to solve this problem.
xenzag, Mar 18 2019
  

       Pah. Solutions are ten-a-penny. Defining the problem, that's the challenge.
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 18 2019
  

       Close [Loris] The one I've seen was a normal looking mug but with those same protrusions.
Might have been home-made who knows. Close though.
  

       // Defining the problem, that's the challenge. //   

       Try looking in a mirror ...
8th of 7, Mar 20 2019
  

       <adds [8th] to Sturton's "special" Christmas list>
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 20 2019
  

       //This often (though not always, nor even sometimes) reduces the girth to a manageable and fittable value.//   

       Speak for yourself
Voice, Mar 21 2019
  

       shortbread!
po, Mar 21 2019
  

       Surely shortbread is proportionally wider than longbread and therefore will fit into proportionally fewer receptacles?
pocmloc, Mar 21 2019
  

       Not a lot of people realise this, but longbread and shortbread are actually exactly the same thing, just rotated by 90° - amazing, eh?
hippo, Mar 22 2019
  

       [hippo] tetris! did you know the blocks had names? so memorable, I forget them.
po, Mar 22 2019
  

       <Siegfried Sassoon>   

       "Have you forgotten yet ?"   

       <Siegfried Sassoon/>
8th of 7, Mar 22 2019
  

       //tetris! did you know the blocks had names? so memorable, I forget them.//   

       xxxx The shortbread   

       x
x The tallbread
x
x
  

       xx
xx The Garibaldi
  

       x
xx The bourbon
_x
  

       x
xx Another bourbon
_x
  

       x
xx The "damn it how many of those in a row?"
_x
  

       xxx The rich Tea.
_x
  

       _x
xx The digestive
x
  

       x
x
xx The gingersnap
  

       __x
xxx The macaroon
  

       xx The hobnob
_x
_x
  

       xxx The Party ring
x
  

       _x
_x
xx The jammy dodger
  

       And so on.
Loris, Mar 22 2019
  

       I had forgotten about my Tangram Bar. (link)
xenzag, Mar 22 2019
  
      
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