A Kimberley Biscuit is a biscuit (cookie, to North Americans) made by the Jacobs company and sold primarily in Ireland.
A Kimberley consists of two small, brown round biscuits that are mildly-ginger flavoured and quite soft, with a soft marshmallow filling in between them. There is a crust of sugar granules on the edge of the marshmallow filling. Some people don’t like the texture of the biscuit. They compare it to wet MDF board in texture, and taste, and think that they must have been sold a pack that was stored poorly.
Chocolate Kimberley Biscuits are coated in chocolate and called a Chocolate Kimberley. They are individually wrapped and don’t have the sugar granules on the marshmallow (which is coated in chocolate, instead.) These chocolate ones used to only appear at Christmas. Now, they are sold year round. The chocolate ones don’t make for good dunking biscuits, as the chocolate coating keeps the tea away from the inside.
Kimberley Biscuits are carried by a few supermarkets in England, but otherwise are not overly well known there or in Northern Ireland.
Kimberley Biscuits used to be made at Jacobs Belgard Road plant in Tallaght, Dublin. On 22 May 2009, Jacob closed that plant and production was moved to the UK with the loss of 220 jobs. Some people were the third generation of their family to have worked at Jacob’s. The factory used to sell quite cheaply bags of broken mixed cookies that included Kimberley Biscuits.
History Notes
Kimberley Biscuits were first made in 1893. Their name was reputedly inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s 1900 novel, “Kim.”
Sources
Minihan, Mary. Farewell Kimberley, Mikado and Coconut Cream as Jacob’s closes. Dublin: The Irish Times. 23 May 2009.