How to make Anzac Biscuits

Last week my eldest daughter Grace had to do a talk at school. She had visited The Imperial War Museum North with her Dad and younger sister Alice, whilst I was poorly in bed. So she decided to talk about her visit there. We also talked about what could have been baked during a war and came up with Anzac Biscuits. I'm sure you know about these already, but if you don't....

They are made from butter, golden syrup, water, bicarbonate of soda, oats, coconut, flour and sugar. Anzac biscuits were made by the wives and girlfriends of soldiers to send them in the war, to cheer them up and keep them fighting fit. They do not contain anything which will go off quickly, so were ideal to last the journey to the battlefield.
Anzac Day is celebrated in Australia to mark the first anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the first world war.

So we decided to make a batch of them for Grace, and her class mates, the teachers and teaching assistants....and a few left over for us too- we made five batches in the end!! They are yummy, and taste like you are having something healthy with the coconut and oats!!

Here's how to do it.....

 

 

The ingredients:

 

85g porridge oats

85g dessicated coconut

100g plain flour

100g caster sugar

100g butter

1 tbsp golden syrup

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

 

What to do:

 

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160/gas 4.  Line 2-3 baking sheets.

Put the butter and golden syrup in a saucepan and melt together.

 

2. Whilst that is melting measure the dry ingredients and mix them together in a large bowl.

 

 

 

3. Put the bicarbonate of soda and 2 tbsp boiling water in a cup and mix together quickly, then tip it into the melted butter mixture and stir quickly.  You'll get a lovely bubbly mixture with lots of air incorporated into it.

 

4. Tip the melted butter mixture into the dry ingredients and mix everything together until fully combined (forgot to take a pic of this bit-sorry!)

 

5. Roll the mixture into walnut sized balls and place on a baking tray a few centimetres apart to allow room for spreading. It makes about 20 biscuits. Excuse the paper on this photograph, this was batch number five baking now! Bake in batches for about 8 minutes until golden.  Leave to cool on the tray for a couple of minutes then transfer to a wire wrack to finish cooling.

 

And here they are finished.  Really yummy :)  Crunchy round the edges, chewy in the middle. They'd also be good with some raisins, chopped dates or maybe cherries or ginger added.  I might try that next time.  Have a go and let me know what you think x

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