Top 5 Tips for Making Great Anzac Biscuits (2024)

FAQs

What makes Anzac biscuits crunchy or chewy? ›

According to taste.com.au Food Editor Miranda Payne, the traditional Anzac biscuit was the harder, crunchy version. Over time, the original recipe was modified with variations being cooked for less time (making them chewier) or adding more sugar (so they're super crispy).

The secret to the best biscuits is using very cold butter and baking powder. We've made a lot of biscuits, but this easy biscuits recipe is the one we turn to the most (they are so fluffy!). See our easy drop biscuits and cheese drop biscuits for even easier biscuits.

If this recipe ends up really hard, then you may have overbaked them. They shouldn't be too hard because the ingredients won't allow it. But if they do, pop them in an airtight container with a slice of bread and leave them for 24 hours. They'll be fine after that.

So, make sure you roll and bake the mixture as soon as possible after mixing to make rolling and flattening of the biscuits easy. If it does get a little dry you can just mix in another tablespoon or two of water to help make it a little more pliable before shaping. Leave enough room between biscuits for spreading.

Depending on how you like them, Anzacs should be ready once they've turned golden and start to firm up. You want them to be a little soft when you take them out of the oven because they'll harden up on the tray as they cool.

The two keys to success in making the best biscuits are handling the dough as little as possible as well as using very cold solid fat (butter, shortening, or lard) and cold liquid. When the biscuits hit the oven, the cold liquid will start to evaporate creating steam which will help our biscuits get very tall.

And the longer it takes the butter to melt as the biscuits bake, the more chance they have to rise high and maintain their shape. So, chill... and chill.

Just as important as the fat is the liquid used to make your biscuits. Our Buttermilk Biscuit recipe offers the choice of using milk or buttermilk. Buttermilk is known for making biscuits tender and adding a zippy tang, so we used that for this test.

But watch for crumbling or "melting": "If your biscuits are falling apart, then you have added too much of the wet ingredients, or potentially too much sugar," Quinn says. The marine biologist-turned-cook advises leaving the biscuits on the baking tray as they cool, then giving them a day or two to "chewify".

What if my Anzac biscuit mixture is too dry? ›

Texture - The biscuit dough has to be just right. If while mixing, you feel that the dough is too dry and crumbly and you are not able to shape it into rounds, add more liquid (this can be either in the form of a tablespoon of melted butter or just a tablespoon of boiling water).

Best substitute for golden syrup is a combination of light molasses or treacle, plus honey. I use 1 part molasses or treacle, and 3 parts honey – the flavour is nearly identical, and the colour is very similar (a bit darker).

This gets added to the wet ingredients to add moisture to the cookies without adding extra greasiness. Baking Soda. Baking soda or bicarb soda is the main raising agent in Anzac biscuits - it is added to the wet ingredients before being mixed into the dry ingredients.

Anzac biscuits have long been associated with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) established in World War I. It is thought that these biscuits were sent by wives and women's groups to soldiers abroad because the ingredients do not spoil easily and the biscuits kept well during naval transportation.

The best thing we can think of is flax meal or ground oats with some added coconut-free coconut flavouring.

chewy vs crispy is a combination of 2 things… ratio of fats to flour, and baking times/temps.. for more chewy cake like cookies, you want something with a high fat, content cooked at a lower longer temperature… for a more crispy or dryer cooking you want a lower fat batter cooked at a high temperature.

If your freshly baked biscuits seem too soft after they're cooled, then they're either under baked, or there is too much liquid in the recipe.