These scrummy "cakes" are more like biscuits, but with a very crumbly texture. I love almonds, so these were right up my alley. Try them with some Asian drinks. Check out all the goodies from Yummy House.
Rating - 8.5
They are individually wrapped, easy to eat, and comes in a cool brushed metal tin.
Rating - 3
454g
Rating - 1
mung bean powder, sugar, almond, vegetable oil, peanut butter, water
Asian grocers
I think I have now tried all the flavours of rice crackers from Sakata.
Rating - 6.5
They are one of the better known brands of the ubiquitous rice crackers filling our supermarket aisle, with their catchy jingle. I think they try to relate these back to Japan but I don't think they have succeeded at all! The packaging is not up to scratch for one! They come in a tray dividing the crackers into 4. I wish they individually seal the 4 roles though, as once it's opened, you are better off finishing all the biscuits to keep them fresh. It'll also be easier to carry around in smaller packaging.
Rating - 1
I got these on special for 100g for 99 cents. Usually they are about $1.69 I think. It's a fair price to pay.
Rating - 1
Wasabi & Soy
rice (93%), vegetable oil, sugar, soy sauce powder (tamari), flavour enhancer, flavour, fructose, garlic powder, salt onion, powder, yeast extract, anti-caking agent
Tomato
rice (57%), potato (29%),vegetable oil, sugar, salt, flavour enhancer, onion powder, dextrose, tomato powder (0.6%), acidity regulator, spices, garlic powder, parsley flakes, anti-caking agent
Supermarkets everywhere
Asians love their wafers. You can find all manners of flavours in the Asian grocers, with various degree of success. These pandan (or Eastern vanilla) flavour wafer aren’t so successful. The flavour of the pandan is too subtle to have any impact, and the wafer itself is not well made, not having much crunch at all. It was kinda like eating a piece of paper…
Rating - 3
Really cool! I was hoping the biscuit would be green in colour, but it was only a creamy colour. Like most food produced in Asia, there is an over abundant amount of packaging, each wafer was individually wrapped, and the whole package gets wrapped again. So, convenient, but not environmentally friendly. As usual, the English made for some amusing reading.
Rating - 2
150g for $0.5 USD at the airport, I am sure you can pick them up for peanuts in Malaysia.
Rating - 1
sugar, wheat flour, whey powder, vegetable fat, tapioca flour, salt ,vanillin, sodium bicarbonate, amonia, lecithin, vitamin C, pandan flavour and colour
Asian grocers
This is a very hard call to make, especially since I love all the stuff from Byron Bay Cookie Company, but I think this is my absolute favourite of their range. Dates are one of my favourite fruit, and this cookie combined them with a caramelised based. But I think what pushed it just ahead is the ginger, which really really zings it up. I didn’t imagine this combination would work, but boy, was it good!
Rating - 9
Beautiful. I’ve described their packaging too many times already.
Rating - 2.5
150g for $10.95. This is not too bad. Expensive, but worth it.
Rating - 1
dates (24%), rice starch, wheat flour, sugar, butter, glace ginger(13%), rolled
oats, walnuts(8%), eggs, maize cornflour, spices, flavouring, rising agent, salt
David Jones Foodhall
Website
Another indulgence from my favourite biscuit company, Byron Bay Cookie Company. I picked up their Roast Garlic & Cracked Pepper Breadsticks made with organic spelt flour from the Gourmet Savoury Collection. As usual, it did not disappoint. The breadstick was light yet crunchy, with the (not overpowering) aroma of the garlic, combined with the zingy pepper, making it very addictive. Yes, I confess, I went through the whole pack in one sitting.
Rating - 8
These would not look out of place in any designer home or kitchen. The box is beautifully designed and each breadstick look like it has been handmade.
Rating - 3
200g for $21.95. As I always say, very exy but you have to pay for quality.
Rating - 0.5
organic white spelt flour, canola oil, garlic (2.7%), cracked black pepper (2%), organic sea salt, yeast, vegetable gym, sugar
David Jones Foodhall
Website
I would rate these Kez biscuits as about middle in terms of chocolate biscuits go. They were better than the Mother Megs and Home Baked Cookie Co, but certainly not up there with Byron Bay’s. They had a good chocolate hit, with decent chocolate chunks that weren’t too big. I found them a little bit dry, but that’s only a personal preference.
Rating - 6.5
The little bite sized biscuits look very cute and uneven. This one came in a Christmas canvas cover, again, very cute.
Rating - 2.5
150g for $9.95. It’s not the cheapest, but I think it’s a fair price to pay.
Rating - 0.5
wheat flour, butter, brown sugar, milk chocolate (11%) [sugar, milk soilds, cocoa powder, cocoa mass, emulsifier, flavours]. sugar, egg, cocoa powder (3%), flavour, salt, raising agents
Myer
Website
I was really excited about these as I love their shortbread and really want to taste what they can do with their lemon shortbread. Well, it was still really good shortbread, but it didn’t really blow me away with anything extra special. The traditional shortbread was still excellent, I guess maybe I have such high expectation from Byron Bay Cookie Company. Oh these were nice all right, just not the best out of the range I guess.
Rating - 7.5
This came in a longer than usual tin, being long and thin instead of wider and shorter, with delectable drawings on the outside. Inside are two individually wrapped biscuit packs, all lemony yellow from the shortbread.
Rating - 2.5
200g tin for $15.95. I’ve said many times before, they are totally worth the money!
Rating - 1
Traditional Shortbread
wheat flour, butter, sugar, wheaten cornflour, rice flour, salt
Lemon and Macadamia Nut Shortbread
wheat flour, butter, wheaten cornflour, sugar, macadamia nuts (8%), salt, lemon oil
David Jones Foodhall
Website
Another offering of biscuits I picked up, this time from Mother Meg’s.
Rating - 6
The special Christmas packaging is cute but not practical, in a little box with a too tiny carry handle, and a little silver ribbon that’s almost impossible to remove.
Rating - 1.5
150g for $9.95. Too expensive to pay, even for the great ingredients. If you’re going to spend the money, get Luken & May or Byron Bay instead!
Rating - 0
Pecan Shortbread
organic cake flour, pure unsalted butter, pure icing sugar, Australian natural
diced pecans (14%), natural vanilla extract, salt
Shortbread Stars
organic cake flour, pure unsalted butter, caster sugar, organic rice flour, pure icing sugar, natural vanilla extract, salt
Choc Chip
organic cake flour, pure unsalted butter, chocolate chip (15%) [sugar, vegetable fat, cocoa, milk solids, emulsifiers, salt flavour], caster sugar, brown sugar, free range organic eggs, baking powder, natural vanilla extract, salt
Myer
Website
I picked up a few of these varieties from The Home Baked Cookie Co:
Rating - 6.5
I got this as part of a Christmas Gift Set, that came with a set of latte mugs with a different biscuit in each. The biscuits look like the rough and ready variety, but the Robert Gordon mugs were pretty cute, in different colours, with a nice ribbon to tie the box up too!
The cannister set came with another Robert Gordon mug with a lid this time.
Rating - 2.5
The Triple Chocolate Dream 50g + brown cannister was $9.95. The Latte Set, consisting of 4 bags of 80g Gourmet Cookie and four mugs for$29.95. Not bad considering normal gourmet cookies cost about the same.
Rating - 1
rice flour, brown sugar, dark and white chocolate, Australian Macadamias,
cranberries, unsalted butter, whole eggs, coconut, flour, white sugar,
self-raising flour, rolled oats, pure corn flour, pure cocoa powder, xantham
gum, lemon oil, cream of tartar, raising agent
Myer
Website
I was looking forward to tasting these but they weren’t really to my taste. I guess this is quintessential English biscuits, from that very English of companies, Fortnum & Mason. The biscuits were of the dry and bland variety, with only a small amount of fruit breaking the monotony.
Rating - 5
They certainly look fancy, coming in that signature circular tin. The biscuits are lined on a plastic tray then wrapped in foil. The biscuits certainly will look great on a platter when you serve your afternoon tea.
Rating - 2.5
200g for $13.95. Considering these are imported from the UK, where everything costs more, the price is actually not too bad! But, why buy imports when you have excellent locally produced products!
Rating - 1
wheat flour, butter (20.3%), sugar, oatmeal, mixed nuts (4.6%), whey powder,
salt, raising agent
David Jones Foodhall
Website
I picked up these Luken & May goodies after Christmas. The Basil & Parmesan savoury sticks were absolutely scrumptious. The biscuits were top quality and the parmesan very addictive. There was just enough basil to give it a kick along but not to overpower.
The Orange & Cardamom were on the other end of the scale. Sweet shortbread biscuits fragranced by orange. It’s only after you eat it that you get the hit of cardamom as an aftertaste. It’s very very addictive too…
These are certainly better than the , a par above Mother Meg’s and dare a say it, even better than Byron Bay!
Rating - 8.5
These don’t only taste good, but they look good too! The savoury sticks were long, not too thick and not too thin, and look very sexy in their silver tin. The orange and cardamom were in little yellow star shapes and come in a beautiful red tin that will look great on any kitchen bench or office drawer.
Rating - 1.5
175g for $13.95, 175g for $15.95
Rating - 1
Basil & Parmesan savoury
wheat flour, butter (28%), cornflour, parmesan cheese (8%)) [milk, starch, cultures, rennet, salt], spices, garlic, salt basil (0.3%)
Orange & Cardamom
wheat flour, butter (28%), sugar, cardamon (1%), orange oil, salt
From the range of Gluten Free products, I was expecting these to be not as good as the “real thing”, and by that I mean flour, but I was pleasantly surprised. The Orange and Poppyseed Choc Coated Biscuits were a bit more cakey than biscuity, but it actually suits quite well. The biscuit is dense, making the chocolate a very good foil for the biscuits. I love the poppy seeds, and chocolate and orange is such a classic pairing.
The Choc Coated Biscuits were great too, but I have to rank them below the orange and poppyseed. These have a much more chocolate hit, but otherwise the biscuits are pretty plain.
Rating - 7
Maybe because they are gluten free, but more care seems to have gone into the packaging. Plastic trays separate the biscuits ensuring they don’t all stick together – good in theory but didn’t quite work in practice, my pack of biscuits all rolled to one side.
Appearance wise, they are very pretty, with chocolate decorations and in the case of the orange, beautiful specks of poppyseed.
Rating - 2
I got my 200g packs as a sample from the Gluten Free Expo. They normally cost around $3.50 for 12 cookies inside.
Rating - 1.5
Orange and Poppyseed Choc Coated
compound chocolate (35%) [sugar, vegetable fat, cocoa, emulsifiers, salt], sugar, margarine [vegetable oils, water, salt total milk solids non fat, emulsifiers, flavour, acidity regulator, antioxidants, colour],potato flour, rice flour, maize flour, soya flour, hazelnut paste, sweetened condensed milk [sugar, milk solids], invert syrup, poppyseed (1%), golden syrup, whey powder, flavour [orange oil (0.2%)], raising agents, salt
Choc Coated Biscuits
compound chocolate (50%) [sugar, vegetable fat, cocoa, emulsifiers, salt], sugar, potato flour, rice flour, maize flour, margarine [vegetable oils, water, salt total milk solids non fat, emulsifiers, flavour, acidity regulator, antioxidants, colour], soya flour, hazelnut paste, sweetened condensed milk [sugar, milk solids], invert syrup, whey powder, raising agents, salt, flavour
Woolworths
Website
I'm not a big fan of digestive/wheat biscuits, but I found these quite pleasant, probably because of the dark chocolate coating. They only used a thin layer, a perfect amount.
Rating - 6
4 rows of biscuits are separated in a plastic tray. The biscuits don't look very attractive at all, and neither is the packaging, but it's the taste that counts right?
Rating - 1
R.R.P is $2.79 for 200g.
Rating - 8
Rating - 7.5
It looks rough rather than polished. Again, the biscuits are divided into compartments so they travel well.
Rating - 1.5
You don't get that much in a pack, about 8 biscuits in all, but I guess the biscuits are big as they weight 200g, which is the same as a pack of Tim Tams
Rating - 1
hazelnut delight
sugar, wheat flour, vegetable oil, milk solids, hazelnuts (8.5%), cocoa butter, rolled oats, cocoa mass, vegetable oil, golden syrup, cooca, raising agent, emulsifiers, salt, flavouring
fruit & nuts
sugar, wheat flour, vegetable oil, fruit (sultanas (5%), currents (5%)), peanuts (4%), milk solids, cocoa butter, rolled oats, cocoa mass, golden syrup, cocoa, raising agent, emulsifiers, salt, flavouring
Supermarkets everywhere
I am definitely a fan. I've been a fan of the Mint Slice and the Mandarin Slice for ages. I was a bit comprehensive about this, as most things that contain coconut are usually overly sweet and wreck the taste of coconut - case in point, Bounty. I am glad I gave this a go though, as this was absolutely luscious. The coconut lend a fragrance to the chocolate instead of overpowering it.
Rating - 7.5
Lovely and delicious. It's packed in individual portions.
Rating - 1.5
200g for $2.79. At least they don't try to rip you off like the Tim Tams
Rating - 1.5
sugar, wheat flour, vegetable oil, cocoa mass, milk solids, coca butter, cocoa powder, coconut (1.5%), emulsifiers, raising agent, salt, colour, flavouring
Supermarkets everywhere
Koala Brand is basically what greets visitors in Australia. It's not too bad for a shortbread, it doesn't offend anyone. Moi on the other hand, likes something with a bit more butter and a bit more macadamia, bring the fat on, I say.
Rating - 6
More Australian than most in its packaging I suppose, it doesn't say very good things for Australian designs though. The biscuits themselves? Pale cream and uniform, that's about it.
Rating - 1
20g packs a handy as a snack.
Rating - 0.5
flour, butter 28%, sugar, macadamia nuts
Hotels, airlines and other tourist places
I've tried a few of Arnotts's Emporio Cafe selection. My favourite is definitely the Melting Moments. I really like that melting buttery crumbly and thick biscuit base and the sweet passionfruit crunch.
Rating - 7.5
Like they say, just like the ones from the cafe really. Maybe a bit more yellow, but otherwise superb. The packaging is pretty nifty too.
Rating - 2.5
They are fairly exy compared to your run of the mill "family" biscuits, but they are cheaper than going to the cafe I suppose.
Rating - 1
wheat flour, sugar, butter, vegetable oil, milk solids, salt, natural flavouring, emulsifier, food acid, colours
Supermarkets everywhere
I think I have mentioned here enough time by now for everyone to realise that yes I LOVE the Byron Bay Cookies. The Fennel Seed Parmesan Crackers is the first savory offering I've tried and I am addicted! The flavour is very complex. You get the strong hit of fennel, which leaves a pleasant aftertaste. The Parmesan then sends a salty sweet hand, the lovely smell wafting up. Finally the biscuit was thick enough for it to be crunchy but not crumbly.
I also got my hands on the Coriander & Jalapeno Pepper polenta cripss, which just blew my mind. Such wonderful flavour, and of course that hit from the jalapenos...I think I'm addicted.
Rating - 8
Beautiful, each one baked to a dark brown, covered in fennel sweet with little golden yellow Parmesan blobs or brown coriander. They come in several different packaging so you can easily give them as gifts, but I kept to the basic, since this was all for me!
Rating - 2
170g for $15.50 is pretty expensive, but like I've said many times before, I will pay for quality. Just try to get them when they're on special!
Rating - 1
Fennel Seed Parmesan Crackers
organic white spelt flour, Parmesan style cheese (28%), Parmesan cheese, parmigiano reggiano (14%), canola oil, organic sea salt, fennel seeds (1%)
Coriander & Jalapeno Pepper polenta cripss
organic white spelt flour, polenta (25%), sugar, jalapeno peppers (12%), canola oil, egg yolk, organic sea salt, coriander seeds (0.8%)
David Jones Foodhall
Website
These almond vanilla shortbread from Puddings on the Ritz are as exquisite as the Speculaas cookies I tried earlier. It's subtly sweet, very fragrant and light. The light dusking of icing sugar only adds to its appeal.
Rating - 7.5
I love the beautiful packaging, in a cute little box that can be resealed. The crescents are small and cute, and with that white icing sugar, look as heavenly as they taste.
Rating - 2.5
120g for $9.50, quite expensive, but I can tell that good quality ingredients have been used.
Rating - 1
plain wheat flour, unsalted butter, almond meal (40%), icing sugar, egg yolk, vanilla sugar, pure vanilla essence, fresh lemon rind.
David Jones Foodhall
Website
These Walker's biscuits are really scrummy. There's a fresh lemon tang and some juicy raisins, with crunchy and crumbly biscuits. It's not shortbread but I may say it's even better!
Rating - 8
It comes in the trademark red and black checkered box. The biscuits are contained in their own compartment, then sealed in foil. The biscuits look all lemony and cute with little specks of raisins.
Rating - 2
150 g for $5.95 from DJs. A bit exy but they are imported from Scotland.
Rating - 0.5
wheat flour, sugar, currants (13%), butter, vegetable oils, lemon peel (3%), skimmed milk powder, raising agents, lemon oil, salt
David Jones Food Hall
Website
