The Empire Biscuit: Jam, Icing and a Wartime Name Change

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The evidence for this biscuit is thin. Most online histories repeat the First World War story without a source. The best evidence located is lexicographical: the Dictionaries of the Scots Language collects newspaper quotations from 1991 to 2003 that record both names and how people remembered them. Those are late recollections, not wartime documents. A search of wartime bakery advertisements and cookery books for the date at which "Empire biscuit" first appears would settle much of this; it has not yet been done for this card. Alan Davidson's The Oxford Companion to Food (3rd edn, ed. Tom Jaine, 2014) was checked and does not mention the Empire or German biscuit under any name; it is used only for background on related pastries and on Scottish bakery naming.

The biscuit

established The Scottish National Dictionary defines the Empire biscuit as "two round shortcake biscuits with jam between and icing and a cherry or sweet on top". The biscuits are short and buttery, the jam is usually raspberry, and the icing is a thin layer of white water icing. Half a glacé cherry is the traditional finish, though jelly sweets are now common. A 2002 Scotsman writer called it "a species of jam sandwich with knobs on".

The German biscuit

shared The standard story is that the biscuit was known as the "German biscuit" until the First World War, when anti-German feeling made the name unwelcome and bakers renamed it in honour of the British Empire. The Dictionaries of the Scots Language preserve several versions of this account. A Herald writer in 1995 said the name became "empire biscuits" during "the Kaiser's war". A Scotsman writer in 2002 said the change came in wartime, when "mid-European titles lost their allure at home".

shared The same sources complicate the neat 1914 date. A Scotsman contributor in 1999 recalled wartime women baking "German biscuits, which we tried to remember to call Empire Biscuits", and noted that the cherry was rare because of rationing. An Edinburgh Evening News writer in 2000 remembered them as "known to me in those pre-PC days as German biscuits". These memories suggest the old name survived in Scottish homes well into the twentieth century, and that the change may have been gradual, or repeated in the Second World War, rather than a single wartime decision. The draft of this card said "German biscuit" recipes appear in older British cookbooks; that has not been confirmed and is left out until a dated example is found.

Other names

established The biscuit has gone by several names. In 1994 the Dundee Courier reported a Cupar man who bought "Empire biscuits" from one baker and found another calling them "Belgian biscuits". In Northern Ireland the old name lasted: the Belfast Telegraph mentioned "iced German biscuits" in a café in 1997. Wikipedia also lists "Deutsch biscuit", "Linzer biscuit", "Imperial biscuit" and "double biscuits", and reports that in Winnipeg the same thing is called an "Imperial cookie".

The Linzer connection

shared The likeliest ancestor is the Austrian Linzer Auge, or "Linz eye": two shortbread biscuits sandwiched with jam, with one to three small holes cut in the top so the jam shows through, dusted with icing sugar. Its name links it to the Linzer torte of Linz in Upper Austria. The Empire biscuit has no cut-out and is iced instead. The family resemblance is clear. How and when the form reached Scottish bakers is not documented.

established The Oxford Companion to Food describes the Linzertorte as a pastry of flour, ground almonds, butter and sugar, flavoured with lemon zest and cinnamon, spread with raspberry jam and covered with a lattice of the same dough before baking. Its entry on pastry classes this almond dough as a rich shortcrust. Raspberry jam on a short, buttery base is the shared idea; the Scottish version drops the almonds and spice and adds icing.

Shortcake or shortbread?

established The Scottish National Dictionary calls the Empire biscuit's rounds "shortcake biscuits", while bakers often say shortbread. The Companion's entry on shortcake, quoting John Ayto, calls the word "a term of dismaying diversity", whose only common factor is a high proportion of butter or lard, and notes that it has never been clearly separated from shortbread. Laura Mason's entry on biscuits traces both to the rich, flat "short cakes" of the 16th century. In practice the Empire biscuit's base is a rolled, cut shortcake, thinner and usually less rich than a traditional Scottish shortbread round.

Names that keep their period

shared The Companion offers a parallel for a Scottish bakery name that preserves an early 20th-century attitude. Laura Mason notes that several coconut sweets popular in Britain at that time carried the prefix "Jap" or "Japanese" for no clear reason, and that in Scotland a coconut-covered cake was still known as a "Jap cake" when she wrote. Like "German biscuit" and "Empire biscuit", the name records a period and its prejudices rather than any real origin.

established Patriotic and topical names were an old habit of the biscuit trade. The food historian Lizzie Collingham, in The Biscuit (2020), shows that Victorian manufacturers, short of genuinely new recipes, sold biscuits by name and association. Huntley & Palmers wanted to call one biscuit "Victoria"; the Queen refused, and it became the Osborne, after her house on the Isle of Wight. The Marie of 1875 marked a royal wedding, and Peek Frean's Garibaldi of 1861 a foreign hero. Most such names, including Balmoral and Albert biscuits, have disappeared. A wartime switch from "German" to "Empire" would follow the same commercial logic, though no document of the renaming has been found.

Wartime renamings

established The First World War did produce real and well-documented renamings. On 17 July 1917 a royal proclamation changed the name of the royal house to Windsor. The family was commonly called Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, though its actual surname was Wettin. The National Archives notes that King George V responded to H. G. Wells's jibe about "an alien and uninspiring court" by saying, "I may be uninspiring but I'll be damned if I'm alien." The Empire biscuit story fits this climate, which helps explain why it is believed. Fitting the climate is not the same as being documented.

A Scottish bakery staple

established Whatever its origins, the Empire biscuit is now firmly identified with Scottish bakers. McGhee's, founded by Dugald McGhee in Maryhill, Glasgow, in 1936 and now baking at Port Dundas, says Empire biscuits have been in its range since its early days and are still finished by hand. In 2026 the company estimated it had made about 145 million of them over 90 years. That is the firm's own estimate, not audited data. It is a cumulative figure, not an annual one.

established The biscuit also attracts competition. The Highland bakery chain Harry Gow baked a 78-inch Empire biscuit in sections and assembled it at Fife College in Dunfermline, in a contest for an unofficial record for the world's largest.

Invented in Scotland?

shared The Empire biscuit appears on lists of Scottish inventions, but nothing supports that. No inventor, bakery or date of origin has been identified, the form is older and continental, and the name was apparently a renaming of an existing product. The fair description is a biscuit adopted and popularised in Scotland, whose name preserves a moment of wartime patriotism.

• The Scottish National Dictionary added "Empire biscuit" only in 2005.
• Some Fife bakers called them Belgian biscuits as late as the 1990s.
• In Northern Ireland "German biscuit" was still in use in 1997.
• The Austrian ancestor has holes in the top so the jam shows through.
• One Glasgow bakery estimates it has made about 145 million Empire biscuits since 1936.
• They are still finished by hand at McGhee's.
• The Austrian Linzertorte that gave the Linzer biscuit its name is also an almond shortcrust with raspberry jam.
• The Oxford Companion to Food does not mention the Empire biscuit at all.

• Disputed: the "German biscuit" was renamed "Empire biscuit" in the First World War. The story is plausible and widely told, but no contemporary record of the change has been found, and the date of 1914 is not documented.
• Myth: The name changed everywhere at once. "German biscuit" was still in everyday use decades later, in Scottish homes and in Northern Ireland in 1997. The change may have been gradual, or repeated in the Second World War.
• Myth: The Empire biscuit was invented in Scotland. No inventor, bakery or date of origin has been identified. The form is older and continental, and the name apparently renamed an existing product.
• Disputed: the Empire biscuit descends from the Austrian Linzer Auge. The family resemblance is clear, but how and when the form reached Scottish bakers is not documented.
• Disputed: "German biscuit" recipes appear in older British cookbooks. This has not been confirmed. No dated example has been found.