Today, the nation stops to honour those who served and died in Australia’s military efforts, with Anzac Day services held around the country.
Like holding a minute’s silence and playing the Last Post, Anzac biscuits are a big part of the national day of remembrance for many.
Here’s a brief history of Australia’s iconic biscuit.
What is an Anzac biscuit?
The restrictions about what exactly can (and can’t) go in an Anzac biscuit are quite strict.
These days, an Anzac biscuit is typically a sweet oaty biscuit made with desiccated coconut and golden syrup.
But in a summary of Australia’s Anzac Day traditions written for the federal government, David Watt points out that this wasn’t always the case.
“The original Anzac biscuit, also known as the Anzac wafer or tile, was a hardtack biscuit or long shelf-life biscuit substitute for bread,” he says.
“These were not necessarily popular with soldiers at Gallipoli, but there are now recipes for more edible domestic versions.”
A recipe for Anzac tile/wafer on the Australian War Museum website lists a simpler, more austere recipe than what many of us are used to — tap the card below to get a sense of it.
Anzac tile/wafer recipe
The army biscuit, also known as an Anzac wafer or Anzac tile, is essentially a long shelf-life, hardtack biscuit, eaten as a substitute for bread. Unlike bread, though, the biscuits are very, very hard. Some soldiers preferred to grind them up and eat them as porridge.
The following recipe has been supplied courtesy of Arnott’s Biscuits Limited, through Frank Townsend, chief chemist. Originally, the biscuits were baked in large industrial ovens but the recipe has been altered so that one can bake them in a domestic oven.
Ingredients sufficient for six biscuits:
- 200gm/1.5cups/300mls flour
- 400gm/3 cups/600mls wholemeal flour
- 40gm/5tbls sugar
- 20gm/3tbls milk powder
- 1.5 gm/good pinch salt
- 220mls water
(Use self-raising flour. If self-raising flour is not available, sieve 10 grams of baking powder together with plain flour before adding other ingredients.)
Method
Place flour, sugar, and milk powder in a large bowl and blend with your fingertips. Form into a pile and scoop out a hole (well) in the centre. Add all of the water in which the salt has been dissolved. Thoroughly work the flour from the inside of the well into the water until the whole is a mass of lumps of flour and water. Once the dough is formed, transfer it to a tabletop or pastry board. The dough should now be torn apart, rubbed into balls, and thrown together, and the process repeated until the mass is well mixed and in the form of a hard dough. The dough is then rested for about half an hour. Now roll the dough in 8mm–thick sheets using a rolling pin and two 8mm thick guides (wooden slats are ideal), the dough being rolled down between the two guides until the rolling pin rests on the guides during each traverse.
The rolled sheet of dough is then cut into 90 mm squares, preferably by pressing with the edge of a steel rule rather than slicing with a knife. The pressing action helps to join the top and bottom surfaces and will improve the lift on baking. A cardboard square, 90 mm on each side, can be used as a pattern to ensure uniformity in your tiles.
Next, the biscuit squares should be docked by having a regular horizontal and vertical pattern of holes pushed into them at about 18 mm spaces with a flat-ended pin or rod. Push it in until it bottoms, twist slightly, and then withdraw. Repeat at the next position. Each biscuit should have five vertical and five horizontal rows of docker holes, 25 holes in all. There are those at the Memorial who argue for 49 holes (7 x 7) as the authentic number of docker holes.
Place on a lightly greased steel baking sheet, with the biscuits about 6 mm apart, and form a wall around the load with scrap dough to avoid burning the edges of the biscuits. Bake at about 200 degrees centigrade for 30 to 40 minutes on a low shelf in the oven. Take care not to burn them. To achieve a suitable hardness in your biscuits, store for a time in an air-tight container.
Source: Australian War Memorial
When were Anzac biscuits invented?
It’s hard to know the specifics but, generally speaking, it was during World War I — which went from August 4, 1914 to November 11, 1918.
“During World War I, people at home in Australia often sent parcels to the Anzacs to show their support,” according to the Department of Vetertans’ Affairs website.
“Parcels of food supplemented the soldiers’ plain diet of tinned ‘bully’ beef and hardtack, also known as the ‘Anzac wafer’ or ‘Anzac tile’.
“Many care parcels included biscuits made from rolled oats, golden syrup and flour, which had high nutritional value and kept well while being transported overseas.”
This explanation might give you a sense of why the modern recipes differ from the tile/wafer recipe above — those back home wanted the soldiers to have something nicer to eat than hardtack.
What is the Anzac biscuit recipe?
There’s no set, official recipe — instead, there is a whole bunch of variations out there.
However, Anzac bickie recipes generally have three key elements:
- 1.Melting butter and golden syrup
- 2.Adding bicarbonate of soda to this mix
- 3.Adding that mix to flour, rolled oats and desiccated coconut
Here’s a recipe the Department of Veterans’ Affairs used in its book We Remember Anzac in 2014:
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
- 2 tablespoons golden syrup
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda dissolved in 2 tablespoons boiling water
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1 cup desiccated coconut
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 3/4 cup plain flour
Method
- 1.Heat oven to 160°C.
- 2.Melt butter (or margarine) and syrup.
- 3.Add dissolved bicarbonate of soda and water.
- 4.Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, add the liquid mixture and stir.
- 5.Place small balls of the mixture (about 1 teaspoon) onto a greased tray.
- 6.Bake for 20 minutes or until lightly brown.
- 7.Lift biscuits onto a cake cooling rack and wait for them to cool.
Strict commercial guidelines
There are rules about using the term “Anzac” in regards to baked goodies.
You can call them “Anzac biscuits” or “Anzac slice”.
But you can never call them a “cookie” — something explicitly stipulated in the federal government’s Department of Veterains’ Affairs official guidelines.
The department typically approves the use of the word “Anzac” in the commercial production of baked goods, but only if they don’t substantially deviate from the generally excepted recipe and shape.
“Each year DVA declines applications for permits where products include the word ‘Anzac’ but which do not bear any resemblance to generally accepted forms of Anzac biscuits,” the department says.
“Some examples include ‘Choc Chip Anzac Biscuits’, ‘Anzac cheesecake’, ‘Anzac muffin’ and ‘Anzac sandwich’.
