The ‘magic’ ingredient: my search for the perfect Anzac biscuit recipe

‘Chocolate Anzacs? Almond Anzacs? Anzacs with sour fruits? I tried them all’: a selection of Kate Waldegrave’s Anzac biscuits, baked from seven different recipes over two days Photograph: Kate Waldegrave

I have a confession. My favourite recipe for Anzac biscuits includes forbidden macadamias. And forbidden glacé ginger. I adore these golden discs studded with nuggets of chewy, warming ginger and toasted macadamias. It has been my go-to for years and I’ve converted all my family to using this as the standard recipe.

Until last weekend.

In the same way I am overcome with the impulse to cut my hair into a bob with a fringe and obtain a third cat, I was whipped into a baking frenzy and tried seven different recipes for Anzac biscuits in two days. Chocolate Anzacs? Almond Anzacs? Anzacs with sour fruits? I tried them all.

Before you purists sharpen your pitchforks and report me to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs for my blasphemous biscuits (legislation says the biscuits “must not substantially deviate from the generally accepted recipe”, and refers to a recipe that lists butter/margarine, golden syrup, bicarb soda, oats, coconut, brown sugar and flour), let me give you the forward sizzle: this baking marathon had a surprising outcome.

I’m firmly on Team Crunchy when it comes to Anzacs, so when I found a recipe which relied on a higher ratio of golden syrup to sugar, I thought I’d hit the jackpot. Surely using more of the liquid amber syrup would result in an intensely crisp, toffeed biscuit? Sadly not. They were doughy and soft – likely from the moisture content of the golden syrup; and while the flavour was roasty and toasty, they did not usurp my ginger Anzacs.

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The second recipe came from a Cadbury cookbook and – you can see where this is going – it included cocoa powder. The result reminded me more of the New Zealand biscuit now commercially known as Milk Chocolate Roughs. It was quite moreish – but no contender for my favourite.

I moved on to a recipe from Sydney’s Bourke Street Bakery, which included dried barberries, a tiny crimson fruit – smaller than a currant – often found in Middle Eastern cooking, with a sour mouth-puckering intensity. The biscuits were good but the barberries made them feel too healthful and more like a muesli bar.

Anzacs with almonds and vanilla and almond extract appealed to my love of marzipan, and while they were an excellent biscuit, they did not scratch my itch.

Feeling like the Goldilocks of the Anzac biscuit world, in desperation I turned to a travel article which claimed to have found the “world’s best Anzac”. On a boat. On the Hawkesbury River. I was sceptical, especially as there were no forbidden inclusions. No pizzazz. Just oats, flour, raw sugar, butter, bicarb and a scant amount of golden syrup. In short, a law-abiding recipe.

They were perfect. Crunchy and buttery with lacy edges, toasty and heady with notes of molasses. The unrefined raw sugar was the magic ingredient.

I’ve since made two more batches with one minor tweak – swapping out two-thirds of the desiccated coconut for shredded coconut to give more textural contrast.

And while this might be my go-to recipe for now, I’m not ruling out trying them on Anzac Day, sandwiched together with a rosemary-infused chocolate ganache.