Brown Butter Anzac Biscuits - these traditional Anzac biscuits are chewy and oaty, and are made with brown butter and honey for a perfect depth of flavour. This is a quick Anzac biscuit recipe, and is perfectly soft and chewy.
Happy Saturday! I have another New Zealand (and Australian this time) classic to share with you today - Anzac biscuits! If you haven’t heard of or tried Anzac biscuits before, you are in for a treat - they are an Oat based biscuit (what we call cookies), are a stir together situation so are quick to make, and are chewy and delicious. They came about during the first World War, when people still at home would make biscuits from their ration packs to sell to raise money for the war effort, and the ingredient list originated from what was available - flour, rolled oats, sugar, butter, golden syrup, coconut, and baking soda. They are generally made around Anzac day, which is the 25th of April, which marks the day that the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (hence the name Anzac) landed at Gallipoli in 1914.
I have shared a recipe for Anzac biscuits here before but it was 1) a long time ago and 2) not my ‘ideal’ version of an Anzac biscuit. While all versions are basically a riff on the same base, using the same ingredients but different quantities to give different textures, I found during my testing that these are particularly sensitive to changes in ratios of ingredients - as little as 15g flour difference within the recipe made a huge change to the texture. I think that it is something to do with the lack of eggs in the recipe, but regardless, I tweaked and tweaked the recipe, playing around with different ratios and baking temperatures to come up with what is, to me, the perfect recipe for Anzac biscuits. My version are a tiny bit crunchy around the edges, and perfectly chewy in the middle.
I did switch a couple of things up during my testing which I think made a difference to the final outcome. The variables I was playing around with were ratios of brown and white sugar, the amount of flour used in the recipe, and the temperature that the biscuits baked at. For the most part, as is with most cookie recipes, brown sugar gives you a thicker biscuit, while white sugar promotes spreading, so coming up with a balance of the two lead to a cookie that has a nice spread and bakes up flat but still has enough thickness to give some chew in the middle. I definitely went both ways with this, making some that were totally flat and crunchy and a couple that were like rocks, so it was really interesting to see how the final outcome was affected by that ratio.
Aside from the flour content the other variable I played around with was the oven temperature. This is a super easy one to test - I usually just divide up my batch and bake half at each temperature when I am testing. Temperature really makes a difference in the final shape of the cookie - those baked at a higher temperature tend to spread a little more quickly than those baked a little lower, and for these a lower temperature was perfect, as it allowed them to spread a little slower, giving a chewier middle. This highlights how important it is to make sure your oven is running to temperature - an oven thermometer is a great investment if you don’t have one already.
I kept the ingredient list the same for my Anzacs as the traditional Anzac biscuit, but browned my butter in the first step. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but it is a super easy step to add a little more flavour to your Anzac biscuits without having to add any extra ingredients. Anzac biscuits also traditionally use golden syrup, but it seems as if it is a little harder to find here than it is in Australia and New Zealand, so I switched it out and used Honey instead, going with this super flavourful Raw Native Bush Honey from Steens Honey, which is perfect for baking!
Steens Honey is a small New Zealand family owned business, producing a wide range of honeys - they have some amazing manuka varieties but also make this incredible Raw Native Bush Honey which is super dark in colour and is incredibly flavourful. New Zealand honey just hits different - it’s hard to explain but you will need to get some for yourself and give it a try. It is nothing like I have ever tasted in the States, and as soon as you try it you will know exactly what I mean. Steen’s Raw Native Bush Honey is amazing quality and because of the strong flavour, it was perfect for these Anzac biscuits - it rounded out the flavour and paired so, so well with the brown butter. The resulting honey flavour is delicate, but so, so good. I will happily eat a spoon of this straight from the jar, so knew it would be so good in the biscuits!
A few wee tips:
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IMPORTANT TIP. An oven thermometer is a great investment if you don’t have one, just to check your oven temperature and calibrate if needed. I found that if people have issues with spreading and their biscuits coming out flat, it is often to do with an oven that is running hot.
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You need to make this recipe by weight. When I was testing I was changing the quantities of the ingredients by as little as 15g and seeing big changes in texture, so it’s super important that you get the right quantities here. This is the scale I have been loving lately if you are in need of a new one!
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If you don’t want to brown the butter in these, just use 135g melted butter.
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The 175g butter quantity comes from adding a little extra to the initial quantity to account for the loss in volume when browning the butter. You are cooking off the moisture, so you need to start with more regular butter than the quantity of brown butter called for in the recipe (I usually multiply the quantity of brown butter I need by 1.3 to work out how much I need to start with)
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If possible, bake these two trays at the same time. I found that the dough doesn’t rest super well, so you are best to bake them off just after mixing if you can. It isn’t the end of the world if you can’t but the texture of the second batch may be different to that of the first.
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Watch these carefully as they can get a little toasty on the bottoms! Mine needed 15 minutes, but if you want them a little less golden and a bit softer drop the baking time by a minute or so - check on them at 12 minutes and go from there.
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This recipe would halve very well as there are no eggs, but the biscuits last a long time in an airtight container if you only have a few people in the house (These will disappear quick though, promise!)
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I get you to roll the mixture into balls. You don’t need to flatten them down - they will flatten off themselves in the oven.
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If you would like to get your cookies super round you can do a #cookiescoot - take a cutter slightly bigger than the cookie and place it over the top and use it to scoot it into a round shape when it is hot out of the oven.
Thank you so much to Taste of New Zealand of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise for Sponsoring this post! All opinions are my own.
Anzac Biscuits
- Prep Time: 15 Minutes
- Cook Time: 30 Minutes
- Total Time: 45 Minutes
- Yield: 12 Biscuits / Cookies 1x
Description
Brown Butter Anzac Biscuits - these traditional Anzac biscuits are chewy and oaty, and are made with brown butter and honey for a perfect depth of flavour. This is a quick Anzac biscuit recipe, and is perfectly soft and chewy.
Ingredients
- 175g Unsalted butter, cold from the fridge is fine (see note about butter quantities)
- 40g Steens Raw Native Bush Honey
- 30g water
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 135g all-purpose flour
- 50g desiccated coconut
- 110g Old-fashioned oats (Rolled Oats)
- 130g light or dark brown sugar
- 90g white sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°f / 160°c. See notes about oven temp - if your oven is running hot, these will spread a lot. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Place the butter in a medium saucepan, and place over medium heat. Cook until the butter has melted, and then continue to cook, swirling the pan often, until the butter foams and turns golden brown and nutty - this should take 3-4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool slightly.
- Weigh out 135g of the brown butter and place into a small saucepan. Add the Steens Raw Native Bush Honey and water, and place over a low heat, stirring frequently, until smooth and melted together.
- While the wet ingredients are heating up, in a large bowl, combine the flour, coconut, oats, brown sugar, white sugar, and salt. Mix until full incorporated.
- Once the butter and honey mixture is smooth and combined, remove from the heat and add the baking soda, mixing well to incorporate (it will foam up a little). Pour into the dry ingredients and stir with a spatula until well combined.
- Portion the mixture into 2 Tbsp balls (it will feel a little greasy but that is ok), and roll into balls. Space evenly on the baking sheets.
- Bake the cookies for 14 to 15 minutes, until they are golden brown and set around the edges. Check for doneness after 13 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and using a large cookie cutter, scoot the biscuits into a round shape if desired. Leave to cool on the pans - they will set up as they cool.
- Store biscuits in an airtight container.
Keywords: Anzac Biscuit, Brown Butter, Oatmeal, Anzac Cookie
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