Choose a plain digestive if your recipe calls for one and you want a fairly neutral crumb base beneath a creamy or fruity filling. Choose speculoos when its caramelised, spiced flavour is meant to be part of the tart. A biscuit base for a chilled tart is not a straightforward substitute for cake batter or shortcrust pastry in a tart that goes in the oven.
If you’re making a cheesecake or quark tart with a cream, fruit or lemon filling, a digestive can make a good base without adding a strong spiced flavour. Jumbo uses digestive biscuits and butter for a pressed, chilled quark tart base.
If you want the base itself to have a distinct caramel and cinnamon flavour, speculoos gives you a different taste from digestive biscuits. Lotus Biscoff’s ingredients on Albert Heijn’s Dutch product page include candy syrup and cinnamon.
If you’re mainly making a crumb base, compare pack sizes, allergens and the variety available to buy. Albert Heijn, Jumbo and ALDI each show a 400 g pack of digestives on their product pages.
First, check whether your recipe specifies digestive biscuits and how much flavour the base should add to the filling. Then check the packaging of the biscuits you want to use.
| What to consider | What to check before buying | Who it matters to |
|---|---|---|
| Matching the recipe | Check whether the recipe specifies digestive biscuits, along with the amount of biscuits, butter ratio and tin size. | If I’m making a chilled tart from a recipe, I don’t want to unknowingly use a biscuit with a different flavour. Matching the recipe comes first for around 40% of consumers. |
| Flavour of the base | Decide whether you want plain digestives or speculoos; if you choose a specific variety, check the ingredients on the packaging. | If the filling works well with caramel and cinnamon, I want to taste those flavours in the base too. That’s the first consideration for around 30% of consumers. |
| Practical own-brand choice | Compare the pack size with the amount you need and check that you can get the variety you’re looking for. | For my tart, I want enough biscuits in an own-brand pack without having to switch varieties. Around 30% of consumers prioritise this practical choice. |
According to Albert Heijn’s Dutch product information, Lotus Biscoff contains ingredients including candy syrup and cinnamon. This gives the base a different flavour profile from one made with plain digestives.
Before choosing your biscuits, decide whether you want the base to stay in the background or add a caramelised, spiced flavour.
Baktotaal recommends using unfilled biscuits as the starting point for a biscuit base. A filled variety is therefore not automatically interchangeable with the biscuits in your recipe.
Choose unfilled biscuits unless your recipe specifically calls for a filled variety.
Ingredients and allergens can vary between varieties and packs. This is particularly important if you need to avoid wheat, milk or soya.
Before use, check the ingredients and allergens on the packaging of the exact biscuits you’ve bought.
McVitie's Digestives Original is a branded digestive biscuit for anyone who specifically wants to use this biscuit in a crumb base.
AH Digestive 400 g is an own-brand option when a recipe calls for plain digestives.
Jumbo Krokante Digestive Biscuit 400 g is an own-brand digestive. A Jumbo recipe uses digestive biscuits for a chilled quark tart base.
Lotus Biscoff is a speculoos option when you want a caramelised, spiced flavour in the base.
Biscotto Digestive Biscuits is an own-brand option for a plain digestive base.
These biscuits offer different options for a crumb base: digestive if your recipe calls for it, or speculoos if you deliberately want to give the base a spiced flavour. If you use a different biscuit from the one specified in the recipe, check the instructions for the base too.
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A straightforward choice for a chilled crumb base when your recipe calls for digestive biscuits. Follow the quantities and butter ratio in the recipe; this variety contains wheat and may contain milk.
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For a base where you want the flavour of speculoos to come through, rather than a plain digestive base. The product information lists wheat and soya; check the label on the pack you buy.
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A speculaas option if you want a spiced biscuit base instead of the digestive your recipe may call for. If you’re making a crumb base, check that this variety is unfilled and follow a recipe suited to the biscuits you’ve chosen.
No. According to Baktotaal, you can also use other unfilled biscuits for a crumb base. Choose digestives if your recipe specifies them. If you want to use speculoos or another biscuit, bear in mind the different flavour and follow a suitable recipe.
Start with the quantities in the recipe for your tin and filling. Jumbo’s strawberry quark tart recipe uses 200 g digestive biscuits and 100 g butter for a Ø 24 cm springform tin; the pressed base is chilled.
Read the ingredients and allergens on the current packaging for the variety you’ve chosen. Albert Heijn and Jumbo’s product pages list wheat for the digestives mentioned; McVitie's may also contain milk. The Lotus Biscoff variety mentioned lists wheat and soya.
Keep a tart with a whipped cream filling in the fridge and follow the storage advice for that particular tart. The Voedingscentrum advises keeping opened whipped cream tart in the fridge for no more than one day; this advice does not automatically apply to every tart with a biscuit base.
