The name biscuit, or biscotti in Italian, is derived from the Latin bis cotum – or baked twice. The origins of the modern biscuit can be traced to France where in the 14^th century they were being sold on streets of Paris. They were hard and dry and differ from the dough that Dutch bakers began using to make what are now know as cookies, or ‘Koekje’, small cakes in Dutch.

In Latin, the cocao tree, Theobroma cacao, means “food of the gods.” Many historians believe that the origins of this god like product go back 2000 years. But it was the discovery of the Americas that introduced chocolate to Europeans. At first it was consumed as a drink and solely by the rich for taste, but also because they believed it had medicinal and even aphrodisiac properties.

The discovery by a Dutch chemist of a method for making powdered chocolate in 1828 – so-called “Dutch cocoa” – and the advent of the steam engine would transform chocolate into a mass produced and distributed product. First up it was Joseph Fry, with moldable chocolate past in 1847, which was then followed-up by the Cadbury family in 1868 who began to produce chocolate sweets and then the milk chocolate was introduced to the world by Nestle.