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We blind taste-tested eight Anzac biscuits and found more flunks than slam dunks. From the crunchy and dry to the gooey and chewy, here’s the way the cookies crumbled.
It’s not my intention to spark a culinary culture war while real and horrific wars rage illegally across the world. But like the pavlova, the flat white and Crowded House, the provenance of the Anzac biscuit is a subject of fierce trans-Tasman conjecture.
“It was invented in Adelaide,” cry the Croweaters. “Ut was unvinted un Willungton!” plead the Kiwis.
Other origin theories start much further abroad. Did it mutate from the 14th century Scottish oatcake? Is it just Hannah Glasse’s 1747 recipe for gingerbread cake remixed for modern sensibilities?
However you bite it, the Anzac biscuit has earned its place in history: a sweet totem of hope and oats mailed from the home front to the frontlines in times of trouble.
Given how easy they are to bake, I’d recommend whipping up a tray of your own before rushing to the supermarket this weekend. But if you don’t have an oven, here are eight store-bought options – crunchy ones, chewy ones, Goldilocks hybrids – blind-tasted ranked from worst to best.
8. Bakers' Finest Anzac biscuit tin (Aldi)
$8.99 for 300g (plus bonus biscuit tin)
Right, then. A six-centimetre diameter. A dusky brown hue, moderate undulations and crudely sliced oat shards on top. Bit of phantom vanilla on the nose. (Strict regulations govern what can and can’t be used in a commercially produced Anzac biscuit – vanilla is a no-no.)
Extremely dry. More phantom vanilla on the palate; tastes like an Arnott’s Tic Toc biscuit. No golden syrup, oats blended to nothing. Where’s the coconut?! Gimme coconut or gimme death!
Score: 2/10
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7. Bakers' Finest Anzac biscuits (Coles and Woolworths)
$3.80 for 300g
Ooh, a dome! This one looks like it may have been baked in an actual oven rather than dried in the hot sun. Looks crumbly. Ahhh! Smells like crappy vanilla and tastes like crappy vanilla! What is this phantom vanilla BS?!
This one nails the crisp-exterior, chewy-interior tango, but it just doesn’t taste like an Anzac biscuit. Beginning to think the only way to keep these things shelf-stable is to strip everything from them that makes them … them.
Score: 4/10
6. Unibic Anzac Biscuits (Aldi, Coles & Woolworths)
$3.20 for 300g
Whole oats visible from the top, and, dare I say, the first hint of coconut on both eye and nose. Dry as heck, sweet as! Easy on the teeth, but sadly far less flavour than the nose would suggest. Eh!
Score: 5/10
5. Emmaline's Anzac biscuits (selected IGAs)
$9.99 for $350g
Ok, now we’re talking! A nine-centimetre diameter. Thin. A rich hue, but kind of … jaundiced. Loads of oats poking out the top. Clearly more love in this one than many of the others, but it does kind of smell like a dusty filing cabinet.
Woah! This is far chewier than its appearance let on. Coconuttier than most. Buttery enough. Tastes like oats, which shouldn’t be a hard KPI to hit. Alas. Teeth feel chalky and squeaky. It’ll do!
Score: 6/10
4. I'm free from gluten Anzac biscuits (Coles)
$4.20 for 160g
Pale, sickly beige: looks like a ginger snap in the throes of consumption. Smells like golden syrup. Similar diameter to our last-place getter. Crystalline shimmer on the top and an absolute TOOTH-BREAKER! Damn, there’s some flavour here! There’s the odd whole oat in there, too.
Good salt, good oatiness, no discernable coconut but has that flapjack-y, battery yum-yum you want in an Anzac biscuit. Best flavour yet.
Score: 6.2/10
3. Woolworths Anzac biscuit family 24 pack
$5.75 for 24 biscuits
A bendy boy! High hopes for this one. Definitely a chewy guy, and a very handsome bronze hue. Sparkles cheaply like cubic zirconia. Doesn’t smell much like an Anzac biscuit; none of that treacly good-good on the nose.
Tastes like oat and not much else. Judicious salting. A great chew, but I want more fudgy, buttery, treacly, coconut action. Bronze for Woolies! Score: 6.3/10
2. Irrewarra Anzac biscuits
$9.99 for 140g
Holy oats! This thing measures in at an undunkable 10.5 centimetres wide. There are tiny little holes where the butter bubbled and fell, and the whole thing glistens with moisture. Oats abound. Very thin. Smells like golden syrup and cracks like praline. Fatty, sweet, but not overwhelming. Very handsome. Looks like a bronze medal, but it’s taking the silver!
Score: 6.5/10
WINNER: Coles Bakery Anzac biscuits
$3.50 for 12
The blondest of the bunch. Looks like a cragglier macadamia Subway cookie. Strong undulations. Corrugated underside, like it was so heavy on the drying rack it sagged around the rods. A healthy seven-centimetre diameter. Smells of … not much, but BOY is it chewy!
Doughy, battery interior, plenty of oat flavour, sweet but not brutally so. Some will argue this is undercooked, but I personally like the sog. Could be more flavourful, but the fudginess is everything. Salty, buttery, coconutty, oaty. See?! It’s not that hard! Coles takes the gold in a frankly disappointing field!
Score: 7/10
In conclusion, store-bought Anzac biscuits pale in comparison to the outstanding biscuits you are going to bake this weekend. Yes, you! I guarantee the most elementary home job will outperform anything on this list. Go forth and bake, Australia – I believe in you!
