The Best Australian Biscuits and Biscuit Tins

Australia makes very good biscuits. Not the ones in the supermarket multipack, the ones baked in small batches by people who have been doing it for decades, sold in tins you keep long after the last crumb has gone.

This is a guide to the biscuits worth buying, the brands behind them, and why the tin matters more than you'd think.

What makes a biscuit worth buying

Three things, mostly. Butter, time and restraint.

Real butter is the first test. It costs more than vegetable shortening and it shows up in the texture. A shortbread made with butter breaks cleanly and melts; one made with shortening sits waxy on the tongue. Time is the second. Good biscuit dough rests before it bakes, which is why small producers can charge more and still sell out.

Restraint is the one people miss. A biscuit doing four things at once is usually hiding a weak base. The best ones commit to a single idea and execute it properly.

The Australian names worth knowing

Jen's Traditional Biscuits is the one we get asked about most, and the range is genuinely broad. The Anzac biscuits are the obvious starting point, proper golden syrup and oats, chewy rather than sandy. The Freckle Face is the one that disappears fastest at a morning tea. If you can't choose, the Delux Mix settles it for you.

For something less sweet, the ginger oat and choc oat both hold up to a strong coffee, and the macadamia and white chocolate is the one to send interstate when you want it to taste like here.

Valley Produce Company does butter shortbread in tubes, including a series printed with Australian animals that has become a quiet favourite for people posting gifts overseas. Scottie Dog Shortbread Co takes the Scottish method seriously and the results are dense, buttery and worth the price. Charlie's Fine Food Co makes shortbread fingers that are hard to stop at one of.

And Gingerbread Folk sits slightly apart, properly spiced gingerbread, and a range that works as well for a kid's party as it does on a cheese board.

The imports that earned their shelf space

We stock fewer imported biscuits than you'd expect, because most of them don't survive the comparison. Three do.

Grandma Wilds comes out of Yorkshire and understands tins better than almost anyone. The Luxury Biscuit Assortment is 400g of genuinely varied biscuits in a tin people keep on the bench.

Verduijn's is Dutch, very thin, very crisp, and the one to reach for when you want something alongside cheese rather than tea.

Whittard of Chelsea makes biscuit tubes that are built for gifting, the salted caramel and triple choc are the two that move.

Why the tin matters

A biscuit tin is not packaging. It is the reason the biscuit at the bottom tastes like the one at the top.

Biscuits fail in two directions. Crisp ones go soft by pulling moisture out of the air; chewy ones go hard by losing it. A sealed tin slows both, which is why a good shortbread in a tin is still good three weeks later and the same shortbread in a torn plastic sleeve is not.

The tin also does something a box can't, it survives. Long after the biscuits are finished it is holding pens, or fishing tackle, or somebody's buttons. That is a large part of why biscuit tins work so well as gifts. You are giving two things and only paying for one.

Choosing a biscuit tin as a gift

A few things worth thinking about before you buy.

Match the tin to the person, not the occasion. A decorative tin someone will display is a different gift from a plain one they'll actually open. Both are fine — just be honest about which you're giving.

Assortments are safer than singles. If you don't know whether they lean sweet or spiced, a mixed tin covers you. If you do know, a single-variety tin reads as more considered.

Check the size against the household. A 400g tin is generous for one person and modest for an office. For a team, two smaller tins usually land better than one large one — they can sit in different rooms.

Think about who can eat it. Nuts and gluten rule out more people than they used to. If you're not sure, a plain butter shortbread is the safest thing on the shelf.

Keeping biscuits fresh once they're open

Keep the tin closed and out of the sun. That's most of it.

Beyond that: don't store crisp and chewy biscuits in the same tin, because the chewy ones will hand their moisture over and you'll end up with two mediocre biscuits instead of one of each. If a tin of crisp biscuits has started to soften, five minutes in a 150°C oven and a full cool on a rack will bring most of it back.

Don't refrigerate them. The fridge is humid and biscuits take on whatever else is in there.

Where to start

If you're buying for yourself, start with a single variety you already know you like — the Jen's shortbread is a fair benchmark for everything else.

If you're buying for somebody else, start with the tins. And if you want to see the lot, the full biscuit range is here.