ANZAC biscuits were created more than 100 years ago during the first World War and sold at fundraising events for the war effort.
These iconic biscuits - made using oats, coconut, and golden syrup - have since become a defining part of Kiwi culture, and a symbol of the sacrifice our servicemen and women make to defend New Zealand.
A few years ago, we were approached by the National War Memorial in Wellington to create a commemorative ANZAC chocolate bar. It was an obvious choice to use Grandma’s ANZAC biscuits in a bar of our finest coconut milk chocolate.
We asked Gabe Davidson, Founder of Wellington Chocolate Factory about the creation of our ANZAC bar - one of our most popular flavours.
What Inspired the ANZAC Bar?
Using ANZAC biscuits was a natural choice - it’s something we all associate with ANZAC day. The base of the bar is our coconut milk chocolate which only uses coconut sugar, coconut milk, cocoa beans, and cocoa butter, so it’s as good for you as the ration bars sent to the troops during the Great War. Fingers crossed it’s nicer than the Hershey’s bar made for the soldiers, but I haven’t tasted that so can’t be too sure!
How Long Did It Take You to Create the ANZAC Bar?
We knew straight away what we wanted to create, it was just a matter of refining the recipe to make big trays of the yummy ANZAC bars to break up, while being as healthy as possible.
The base is our coconut milk chocolate, made using cocao beans from the Dominican Republic and coconut milk. Both are the perfect accompaniment to our ANZAC biscuit – and the bar is also vegan!
Can You Tell Us About the Inspiration Behind the Artwork?
Tanja Jade McMillan of Misery fame created the beautiful artwork adorning the ANZAC bar. It depicts two young soldiers in a shelter, reading letters from home and eating chocolate while the war is going on in the background.
It was a fascinating process - the design even had the final sign off from Sir Peter Jackson himself. We think the bar captures the true spirit of ANZAC day, both inside and out.
You can find out more about our bar and order it here.
