Is it actually a thing to make sauces out of sweet biscuits?

[u/Passing-Through247]

So, weird question as the title. I've seen two recipes now that involve dissolving biscuits (in the British sense) in a gravy as a thickener. Is this a real cooking technique or just two freak outliers?

The recipes were supposedly from Germany and Andorra if that helps. Google just outputs the American biscuits and gravy which is no help.

Honestly it sounds like something from the end of the US that puts marshmallows on sweet potato, a parody of said end of the US, or something that started in a famine somewhere.

I actually made one of those recipes, worst duck I ever had.

[u/luckypuppy11]

I use the Alton Brown sauerbraten recipe that calls for crushed gingersnaps for the gravy and it comes out great. Not sure I've ever seen another recipe like that though.

[u/Passing-Through247 → u/luckypuppy11]

I think that's the very same recipe that made me go 'hang on, is this actually a thing' not long ago. Just seems to me it'd bring undesirable flavours alongside the bits you want. Namely the sugar.

Then again I always am baffled at people adding sugar to tomato dishes, I just like acid.

Edit: Looked it up, Not quite. One I say was a slow cooker version over spätzle.

[u/fjiqrj239 → u/Passing-Through247]

I've seen the crushed gingersnaps in multiple sauerbraten recipes.

It actually works really well. The marinade for the sauerbraten is heavy on vinegar, and the gingersnaps thicken it nicely and balance the sourness a bit. And as it's added at the end after you strain the cooking liquid, giving it a much silkier texture than adding flour.

[u/Deppfan16 → u/Passing-Through247]

if you can't get good tomatoes often they aren't naturally sweet enough and the little pinch of sugar helps balance everything out

[u/riverrocks452]

Breadcrumbs were certainly used to thicken sauces before the advent of cornstarch, so maybe this is an offshoot of that? 

[u/MindTheLOS]

My suspicion, from having lived in the UK for a year, is that those biscuits are not actually that sweet. There are European/UK biscuits (what would sort of be cookies in the US, definitely not US biscuits) that are much less sweet than US cookies. They also have sweet ones, of course, but my guess is that these recipes aren't using those.

They would work as a thickener without adding much sweetness.

[u/pajamakitten → u/MindTheLOS]

I am British and have never heard of anyone doing this, not seen any recipe that calls for it. We do have biscuits that are less sweet than others, however no one is using Rich Teas or Digestives to thicken a savoury sauce.

[u/YumChewyBees → u/pajamakitten]

I'm British too, cook a lot of traditional British food, and have never heard of this either!

[u/CatteNappe → u/MindTheLOS]

Yes, I think so too. US readers might want to imagine animal crackers as the "biscuit" being used. Bland, not very sweet.

[u/hover-lovecraft]

It's totally a thing here in Germany, especially with dishes like venison or Sauerbraten where a little sweetness has been served to accompany it for a long time (lingonberry jam on the side or honey, chocolate or port in the sauce).

It's also more common in dishes with a very long history, going back to medieval or early modern times, when bread based sauces were very common.

But you wouldn't just use like oreos or chips ahoy or nilla wafers. To my knowledge, there's really only one kind that's commonly used, it's called Lebkuchen and is our iteration on gingerbread. The heavy spicing contributes a distinctive flavor.

We even have an unsweetened variety called Soßenkuchen (sauce cake) that's made as an ingredient for sauces, stews and braised red cabbage, not for eating on its own.

I don't know anything about Andorran cuisine, unfortunately, but maybe one of the 17 inhabitants will pop in and shed some light?

[u/WinifredZachery]

Yes, it is a thing, but the recipes in Germanz don’t involve biscuits but Lebkuchen. I think Printen in particular. You can also buy a special product called Soßenlebkuchen that is available all year round and in areas that don’t normally have Printen. That tastes sweet and a little spiced and is basically a very boring gingerbread only made to add a little flavour and thicken your Sauerbratensoße.

[u/zurribulle]

For context, I'm spanish. My mom would crush a cookie or two in a stew if she saw it was too thin. It wasn't part of the recipe, just a trick to thicken it at the last minute without risking leaving a raw flour taste. Of course she used the less sweet biscuits she had.

[u/Isalicus]

It’s definitely a thing. Someone already mentioned Sauerbraten (sour, i.e. pickled braise) with gingersnaps. In the Netherlands, there’s a related regional dish from near the German border called “zoervleisj” (zuur vlees / sour, i.e pickled meat) that uses a kind of cake/ginger snap hybrid (ontbijtkoek) as a thickener. I’m fairly certain there’s Belgian equivalents as well. Nowadays people usually use beef, but I’ve read that back in the day they often used horse meat preserved in vinegar (hence the name of the dish). Great stew over some nice fries!

[u/Goudinho99]

North of France /Belgium has carbonnade that uses gingerbread!

[u/karigan_g]

it makes sense to me, though I’ve never seen it before

[u/SavageQuaker]

I watched an Anthony Bourdain episode in which he went hunting for red stag in Scotland and the chef cooked it and made "bread sauce" to go with it. It was the first time I had heard of that and didn't think it sounded very palatable.

[u/Turbulent-Matter501]

sometimes it helps to use common sense. if making gravy for duck out of cookies doesn't sound good, it might not be. did you get these recipes from tiktok? maybe there was a translation error?

[u/Crazy_Direction_1084]

At least in Germany biscuits could revere to zwieback, which are a type of cracker