The weather always breaks on Anzac Day and this year was no different. Rainy days and biscuits go together and the recipe for Anzac Biscuits is a handed down one and so evokes memories of baking, mothers and grandmothers. Apparently these biscuits originally came from South Australia and they contain ingredients from their time - oats, flour, golden syrup, and strangely, desiccated coconut.
These are world war one biscuits and whether or not it is true that they were sent to soldiers at the front, they started their life at that time and the recipe has barely changed, probably thanks to the Country Women's Association. I rang my mother to get her recipe which I scribbled on a yellow post-it note. She said she thought her biscuits didn't spread enough and sometime they are too hard and that her mother's (my grandmother's) were better. My aunty thought that this might be because she used a little more butter. I like mine chewy and a bit soft, so armed with all this information I gave it a crack!
Anzac Biscuits
1 cup of rolled oats
1 cup of flour
3/4 cup of brown sugar
3/4 cup desiccated coconut
125 grams of butter
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
1/2 heaped teaspoon of carb soda
1 tablespoon of boiling water
Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
Melt the butter and golden syrup together.
Mix the carb soda and boiling water together and add this to the butter and golden syrup. Pour the mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well.
Put baking paper on over trays and spoon tablespoons of mixture on the paper leaving space for spreading. You can press the tops a little to make thinner biscuits.
Put in a slow oven (160 degrees) for around 20 minutes or until golden brown. Take them out of the oven and allow them to cool.
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