If you love a biscuit, well, you’re in the right place! Most people’s biscuit history knowledge only extends as far back as what our grandparents, aunties or uncles may have pulled out of the cupboard on a visit many years ago, but as biscuit lovers here at Kez’s, we want to share a little more about our favourite snack.

Ask someone today if they’d like a biscuit and, as long as you’re in Australia, it will be assumed that a delicious, sweet, crunchy treat (sometimes with a creamy filling), will be pulled from the cupboard.

In other parts of the world including America, some parts of England and Canada, you’d be surprised to see a quick bread, similar to a scone, placed next to your cuppa, and it might not even be sweet…

Go back a few hundred years and your biscuit (from the French word ‘bescuit’, derived from the Latin words bis (twice) and coquere/coctus (cook/cooked)), might have been baked four times to ensure it was extra dry and could last months without spoiling while you were on a long journey where fresh food would not be accessible. Our much-loved Australian ANZAC biscuit is a great example of a biscuit created to provide nutrition with a long shelf life; it was created in 1915 to be included in care packages for soldiers. Did you know the name ‘ANZAC’ is an acronym for ‘Australian and New Zealand Army Corps’.

In fact biscuits were considered such whole nutrition that in 1588, the official daily allowance on board a Royal Navy Ship was one pound of biscuit, they were baked as rectangles to allow for easy packing, to go with your gallon of beer (biscuits and beer, hey?).

Thankfully, in the early-mid 1800s, the biscuit as we know it (packaged in one of the first ever biscuit tins at the time – the kind many of those grandparents, aunties and uncles might keep their sewing kit in now), started to be manufactured as the sweet, often cream filled delights we know today. By 1900, one of the earliest British biscuit distributors, Hunley & Palmers, were selling their biscuits in 172 countries and being enjoyed as the snack we enjoy them as now.

Today we’re lucky enough to have access to delicious biscuits of every variety and catering to every dietary requirement, all around the world (and even luckier to bake our own and share them with you!). With this knowledge of the history of our beloved biscuit, we might just pop an extra one next to our cuppa this afternoon, for nutrition and sustenance, of course...