The act of dunking a biscuit into a cup of hot tea awakens a level of comfort in the biscuit-dunker that is the culinary equivalent of curling up on the sofa with a hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire with Mr. O’Shea on your lap. There’s an instinctive draw to dunking your biscuit in a hot drink, and it’s not hard to believe that we humans have been doing this very act since we had biscuits to dunk and tea to dunk it in. To moisten hard tack crackers, sailors in the 1500s would dunk them in brine or coffee to soften up the biscuits. Centuries before hard tack, the Romans were dunking unleavened wafers into wine. It’s believed that the word biscuit comes from the Latin “bis cotum” which means twice baked.

Dunking has a place in cultures the world over. In Italy today deliciously crunchy biscotti are served on the side of cappuccinos. In parts of India sweet and salty osmania biscuits are dunked into chai. In the USA chocolate chip cookies are dunked into milk.

So, with your cultural and historical dunking lesson over, I can tell you that yesterday I was making my own deliciously crunchy almond and hazelnut biscotti….which I love to dunk in a strong latte.

There is nothing nicer and more satisfying than a good dunk.

My dad used to dunk his buttered toast into his tea, which I think is particularly gross, but, each to their own. I dunk buttered French bread into soup, so is there really a huge difference?

Dunking, in my view, has to be done into a large bone china mug of coffee – and one can never dunk with a cup and saucer. And, the right amount of dunking depends on the hardness of the biscuit, or in my case biscotti…as no one EVER wants to hear the disappointing wail of the “dunkee” as the too-soggy end of his or her biscuit bends off and descends into the warm abyss that is the murky depths of the bottom of the cup. To dunk, or not to dunk? That is the question….