23/04/2026
❓️Did you know❓️
Origin of ANZAC Biscuits.
Stories have circulated for years that Anzac Biscuits were based on Scottish oatcakes, called “Soldiers’ Biscuits” pre-1915 and the Gallipolli Campaign, and that they were renamed when the ANZAC acronym was coined. Its also widely stated that they were sent to soldiers at the front and baked by women at home during the First World War to raise funds for the war effort.
Helen Leach, Professor of Anthropology at Otago University is internationally recognised for her research into the origin of food. Her research into Anzac biscuits found:
…The first use of the name Anzac in a recipe was in an advertisement for Anzac Cakes in the 7th edition of the St Andrew's Cookery Book, published in Dunedinin 1915, the year of the landing at Gallipoli. These cakes may have been like rock cakes; however the recipe left out the mixing instructions. They were not a form of Anzac Biscuit.
"In 1917, The War Chest Cookery Book published in Sydney included a recipe for Anzac Biscuits. However the recipe was for another type of biscuit altogether (using eggs, cinnamon and mixed spice, and rice flour).
The prototype of today's Anzac Biscuit appears in The War Chest Cookery Book under the name Rolled Oats Biscuits.
"In 1917 or 1918, exactly the same situation can be found in the Southland Red Cross Cookery Book. It contained a recipe for Anzac Pudding, while what we know as Anzac biscuits appeared under the name Rolled Oat Biscuits.
Then in the 9th edition of the St Andrew's Cookery Book, published in Dunedinin 1921, we find Anzac Crispies with the ingredients and method that we recognize in modern Anzac biscuits.
"From The Australian National Dictionary we learn that the first correct recipe for biscuits called 'Anzacs' appeared in 1923 in Mrs H. W. Shaw's Six Hundred Tested Recipes, 9th ed.
This 1923 recipe is very similar to our 1921 Anzac Crispies.
On present evidence New Zealand has the authentic recipe two years ahead of the Australians.
In view of the many different items renamed to commemorate the Anzac forces, it is obvious that people on both sides of the Tasman were following parallel paths.
