{"id":485119,"date":"2026-06-19T08:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T08:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/485119\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T08:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T08:17:09","slug":"australians-upset-after-americans-describe-tim-tams-as-cookies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/485119\/","title":{"rendered":"Australians upset after Americans describe Tim Tams as \u2018cookies\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
The items sold at Costco in the US include ingredients such as Red 40, Yellow 6, and Blue 1, which aren\u2019t included in those sold in the original home of the Tim Tam.<\/p>\n
Australians are unhappy Tim Tams are being described as cookies by Americans. Photo \/ arnotts.com<\/p>\n
Despite the success of the chocolatey treat in North America, Aussies have taken exception to Tim Tams being called \u201ccookies\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cShut up yank, it\u2019s a biscuit,\u201d one online commenter said.<\/p>\n
Another pondered the \u201cconcept\u201d of a Tim Tam being a cookie, while others were more threatening for using the term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not cookies mate. They\u2019re biscuits,\u201d another user wrote.<\/p>\n
Another was less aggressive in their approach to the term \u201ccookie\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst time I\u2019ve heard them called a cookie!\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut whatever you call them, they are delicious.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the US, the term biscuit is commonly applied to something more like a scone, whereas the term cookie encompasses food items that may be considered to be a biscuit in New Zealand or Australia.<\/p>\n
Tim Tams were inspired by a similar British biscuit, the Penguin, which consists of two rectangular chocolate biscuits with chocolate-flavour cream in the middle and covered in chocolate.<\/p>\n
Ian Norris, a food technologist from Arnott\u2019s, which manufactures Tim Tams, was inspired by the treat while on a trip to Britain in 1958 and decided to create his own version.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The items sold at Costco in the US include ingredients such as Red 40, Yellow 6, and Blue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[74,6336,806,20919,1558,650,138,111167,48831,10678,28447,132252,305,101,3556,111,139,69,27940,9939,170505,46001,9938,8496],"class_list":["post-485119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-after","tag-americans","tag-as","tag-australians","tag-been","tag-brands","tag-business","tag-cookie","tag-cookies","tag-costco","tag-describe","tag-fuming","tag-have","tag-left","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-snack","tag-states","tag-tams","tag-tim","tag-united","tag-upset"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}