Lost Australian biscuits that we crunched, dunked then lost
Gone but not forgotten, these biscuit favourites made family parties, afternoon teas and after-school snacks a little bit special. These are the biscuits we crunched, dunked then lost.
Melbourne
Don't miss out on the headlines from Melbourne . Followed categories will be added to My News.
There was a time when we weren’t so health conscious and a packet of biscuits was in just about every pantry in every Australian home.
Whether it was a sweet treat you shared with your Nana over a cup of tea, or the savoury favourites with cheese and dip that were served when guests came calling, biscuits were a staple in most kitchens.
ICONIC EATERIES WE’D LOVE TO REVISIT
As our tastes and our diets have changed, so has the range of biscuits our big bakers produce, and more than a few old favourites have fallen by the wayside over the years.
Here’s an assortment of some of the once popular brands we’ve lost.
MELTING MOMENTS
Arnott’s Melting Moments bore little resemblance to their thick, buttery homemade namesakes, but their memorable shape reminded some kids of the round window on Play School.
These had very sweet cream icing and a slightly buttery, shortbready texture and came both on their own and as part of the evergreen Assorted Creams range.
CHIPS AHOY
These classic chocolate chip biscuits were streets ahead of the competition with soft chocolate chips and a softer, slightly crumbly vanilla-flavoured biscuit base.
Like the rest of the Nabisco range, these were made in a factory in Broadmeadows and always made a good afternoon tea a great one.
IN A BISKIT
These scrumptious savoury biscuits from Nabisco gave Arnott’s Shapes a genuine run for their money.
Cheese In A Biskit. Chicken In A Biskit. Bacon In A Biskit. There was even a Vegemite variant for a while.
But the top of the In A Biskit heap was occupied by Dixie Drumstix — that sensational chicken flavouring on a golden biscuit base that was shaped like a chicken drumstick. These were the biscuits of the gods, but the entire In A Biskit range disappeared in 2015.
PEANUT CRISP
Actual peanut pieces were the highlight of these crunchy little delights from Brockhoff’s.
They hark back to the days before Aussie biscuits manufacturers ganged up on Nabisco and other foreign companies in 1964 as the Australian Biscuit Company, spelling the end of many biscuit brands and the rise of the united Arnott’s brand as the clear market leader.
These were the days when it was possible to buy a pound of biscuits sourced from a big tin at your local corner shop or, if you weren’t too concerned about aesthetics, a cut-priced pound of broken biscuits.
UNEEDA
Uneeda biscuits were a puffier, flakier competitor to Arnott’s SAO biscuits and, some believe, were superior to its more famous cousin.
They were best slathered in butter and Vegemite, or with a generous slice of cheese.
Uneeda biscuits were originally baked by Swallow’s. Few Swallow’s biscuits survive today, but Marie is one of the most well known of those that remain today.
THIN CAPTAIN
Cheese was made for Thin Captains.
Back in the day, when mum and dad broke out the kabana and cocktail onions for parties and barbecues, you could expect to find a plate of buttered Thin Captains with crumbly tasty cheese and a glob of gherkin on top. It doesn’t get more Australian than that.
Video courtesy Chris Keating
Thin Captains were created by Guest’s Biscuits but were part of the Arnott’s stable until 2013.
Since then, Thin Captains have been the subject of online petitions calling for their return. And then there was this sad lament from Herald Sun National Political Editor James Campbell. Let’s hope he was able to stockpile them.
NIK NAX
An early member of the “baked, not fried” snack club, Arnotts released these crispy, tasty treats in the early ‘90s. They came in original, cheese and onion and salt and vinegar flavours.
While the man and his cocktail-blending dog seemed to enjoy them in this early ‘90s advertisement, Nik Nax vanished from our supermarket shelves within a few years.
FRUIT AND NUT
A long lost favourite from the Arnott’s chocolate range that featured currants and crushed nuts on a thin choc biscuit base in a chocolate icing and coated in chocolate.
Fruit and Nuts were so much better than Tim Tams. There. I said it. Somebody had to.
Here they are alongside the more popular Tim Tam and Mint Slice in this very 1980s advertisement.
TOFFEE POPS
Some biscuit devotees swear that Cadbury Toffee Pops are more delectable than Arnott’s Caramel Crowns.
There was something undefinably great about the combination of Cadbury milk chocolate and that pool of gooey caramel toffee.
Cadbury started out about 30 years ago with a wide range of chocolate-coated biscuits in Australia. Some, including Cadbury Fingers, are still available but Toffee Pops are no more.
Check out the Cadbury range in this catchy 1989 advertisement.
GOLLIWOGS/SCALLIWAGS
Maybe some biscuits are better left off the shelf, although many older Aussies might disagree in the case of this crunchy chocolate treat.
These were discontinued years ago not because of poor sales, but because of changing social attitudes.
Golliwogs were, as the name suggests, shaped like old-fashioned golliwog dolls complete with a chocolatey biscuit base.
Recognising that the Golliwog name was problematic in modern Australia, the marketing boffins at Arnott’s renamed them Scalliwags.
The trouble was that the biscuits remained in the shape of a golliwog doll, which many people now regard as racist.
MORE NOSTALGIA:
Was bizarre shooting suicide pact or murder?
Two men walked into a Melbourne photography studio one afternoon in 1872 to pose with their pistols in a bizarre series of pictures. Hours later a gunshot rang out in nearby Treasury Gardens and their true intentions became clear.
Why Curtis Stone wants to come home
Curtis Stone is the Keilor East boy turned celebrity chef who now lives in a multimillion-dollar house in one of Los Angeles’ coolest suburbs. So how does he show his young kids how to be everyday Aussies?