Is Australia’s oldest Anzac biscuit recipe tucked away in your kitchen, or maybe your grandmother’s?
Culinary historian Allison Reynolds has been on a thoroughly enjoyable chase to find out more about this much-loved Aussie classic. She’s baked rather a lot of Anzac biscuits in that time, too.
So when did this simple oat biscuit become an enduring reminder of national pride? The answer, so far at least, appears to lie in a small black notebook, filled with handwritten recipes and entries about transactions at a farm in South Australia. The old notebook is now in the keeping of Carol Moore, from Victoria.
“Carol brought her treasured family heirloom to my South Australian Cookbook Roadshow in 2011,” Allison explains. “Carol’s grandmother, Caroline Sarah Warner, started writing recipes in the book when she married in 1912.”
The roadshow is a series of community events held around South Australia in which Allison invites people to bring along old cookbooks and family recipe books, and helps them date their treasures.
DID YOU KNOW?
The use of the word ‘Anzac’ in the commercial production and sale of Anzac biscuits is actually protected. You cannot sell or advertise a biscuit as ‘Anzac’ if it substantially deviates from the generally accepted recipe and shape, and cannot be referred to as slice or cookies.
AUSTRALIA VS NEW ZEALAND
In 2012, Allison’s interest in the origin of the Anzac was piqued by hearing that a New Zealand academic had claimed that New Zealand had the earliest Anzac biscuit — a 1921 recipe for an ‘Anzac Crispy’. “Of course, I showed this to my research colleagues and I said, ‘How do they know, who’s done this research in Australia?'”
Alison was surprised to discover that although much had been written about Anzac biscuits, not much research had been done in Australia on the earliest versions. She makes it clear that she didn’t set out to prove which country had the earlier claim. In fact, she suspects it happened simultaneously. “It’s a powerful national food in both Australia and New Zealand,” she says. “Everyone knows about the pavlova debate. That divides us, but I think the Anzac unites us.
“They’re an ordinary, everyday biscuit, but they are extraordinary, too. They are ordinary in the sense that they are eaten all year round; they can be baked by anyone, even children; they are inexpensive and the ingredients are things you would have in your cupboard.”
“But they’re extraordinary in that they have become associated with the spirit of the Diggers. Wherever there’s an ANZAC commemoration, anywhere in the world, Anzac biscuits will be served — what other food does that?”
Her research, and that by historians in New Zealand, has shown that similar recipes existed for years under names such as Munchies, Nutties, Soldiers’ biscuits and Red Cross biscuits. They’re all characterised by the use of rolled oats and golden syrup — and no eggs. The combination produced a biscuit that could survive a journey of up to several months to the troops in Europe.
“Just when they started calling it an Anzac biscuit we don’t know, but we do know they started using the word Anzac very early on. There’s a newspaper recipe from 1916 that refers to Anzac ginger biscuits, although that wasn’t what we call an Anzac.”
Caroline Warner’s little black notebook, however, does have a recipe for what we think of today as a typical Anzac biscuit. And other entries suggest it was recorded sometime prior to 1920 — which makes it the earliest Alison has found so far.
With the help of another researcher and a friend who is a keen cookery book collector, Alison has spent the past two years gathering evidence from published cookery books, soldiers’ letters, newspapers and handwritten recipe books, not just to find the earliest version, but also to answer another question: when did coconut become a regular ingredient in Anzacs?
“Carol’s grandmother’s recipe for Anzac biscuits had no coconut, that always intrigued me,” she says. Her research has uncovered a South Australian recipe that doesn’t have a precise date but is definitely from before 1925. Back then, Alison explains, “it was called ‘cocoanut’. It had an ‘a’ in the middle before 1927.”
Contact Allison
Alison’s research is far from over. If you have an Anzac biscuit recipe from 1920 or earlier, or a recipe from before 1925 that uses ‘cocoanut’, she’d love to hear from you — email her at [emailprotected]
You can find out more about Alison’s passion for culinary history at her Facebook page here. And below, she shares her version of the oldest Anzac recipe.
The oldest Anzac biscuit recipe
Makes 26 – 30 biscuits
Ingredients
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
½ cup granulated sugar
125g butter
2 tablespoons (generous) of golden syrup
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons boiling water
Method
Pre-set oven to 170C / 150C Fan Forced / Gas 3. Line two baking sheets with baking paper or lightly oil.
Mix together oats, flour and sugar in a large bowl. Melt butter in a large pan over medium heat, add golden syrup, stir till dissolved. Bring gently to boiling point then remove pan from heat. Mix boiling water and bicarbonate of soda and stir until dissolved. Add this to the hot melted mixture and stir till it froths up the pan. Carefully add the frothy mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well. If a little dry add 1⁄2 tablespoon extra water to help bind it together.
Take a flat dessertspoon of mixture, roll into a ball. Place balls on baking tray 5 cm apart (the biscuits will spread). Press biscuits down using a fork, the back of a spoon, or the bottom of a cup measure. Bake. After 15 minutes take trays (1 tray at a time) out of the oven and press biscuits flat again. Return trays to the oven and continue baking for a further 3–4 minutes or until golden (they will still be soft).
Leave the biscuits on the trays for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack. When the biscuits are cold store them in an air-tight tin.
Allison’s tips
To make measuring easy, warm golden syrup tin in a bowl of hot water, and dip tablespoon in hot water.
It is important to use a levelled cup measure for the oats and flour, or the biscuits will be dry.
Flattening the biscuits towards the end of the baking process is not essential, but improves the appearance.
This is based on the recipe that was discovered in Carole Moore’s family recipe book, compiled before 1920. Allison has changed the golden syrup quantity to reflect the fact that the tablespoon measure we use now is smaller than the spoons used then.
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