Having travelled so far to get to Australia and New Zealand for the Lamington, we might as well stay there for the region’s other iconic bake: the ANZAC biscuit. It’s a biscuit with a story, conjuring up images of the wives and sweethearts of soldiers in the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps lovingly baking them to be sent to their embattled loved ones at Gallipoli and other World War I battlefields. Whether or not this is actually true (Wikipedia is mildly sceptical about the evidence), ANZAC biscuits are a feature of Australian and Kiwi veterans’ fundraising events to this day, their popularity stemming not just from the history but from their general deliciousness: the flavour combination of butter, golden syrup and coconut is a surefire winner.
More prosaically, you can think of ANZAC biscuits are a kind of sweet version of the Scottish oatcake (bake 10). They’re fairly straightforward to make: I followed the basic recipe in the ever-reliable taste.com.au, which gives variants for increased crispiness or chewiness. Most recipes are similar, varying mainly in the amount and type of sugar, with occasional other flavourings added such as vanilla essence.
The quantities here make around 30 biscuits (the eagle-eyed will spot a level of attrition on the way to the biscuit tin).
- 150g plain flour
- 90g porridge oats (don’t use jumbo oats, which are likely to result in your biscuits falling apart)
- 85g desiccated coconut
- 100g brown sugar
- 55g caster sugar
- 125g butter
- 40g golden syrup
- 30ml water
- ½tsp bicarbonate of soda
- Preheat oven to 160℃ fan
- Line a couple of baking trays with baking parchment
- Mix the flour, oats, coconut and sugar in a large bowl.
- Cut the butter into pieces and put it into a saucepan with the golden syrup and water. Warm gently until the butter is melted and everything is combined.
- Add the bicarbonate of soda to the wet mixture and stir to dissolve.
- Pour the wet mixture into your bowl and mix thoroughly. You want to make sure that there’s no dry flour visible when you spoon the mixture away from the sides of the bowl.
- Scoop out a level tablespoon of mixture (this is a good way of getting the biscuits to be around the same size), roll it into a ball and place it on your first baking tray. Now repeat for the others, allowing as much space as you can between your biscuits.
- Now press each biscuit slightly flatter. The 1cm thick suggested gets you a biscuit with a slightly chewy centre: going flatter will get you a crispier version. Either way, the biscuits will spread out somewhat during baking.
- Bake for around 15 minutes, switching shelves half way to make sure they’re all baked the same amount.
- Remove from the oven and cool.
I’ll leave you with two more bits of trivia, courtesy of the Australian War Memorial:
- Original ANZAC biscuits didn’t have the coconut.
- The biscuit actually used as army rations was a completely different thing: a “hardtack” biscuit known as the Anzac Tile and made from wholemeal flour and milk powder.
Polything 