Anzac Biscuits

Today is Anzac day in New Zealand, so of course I had to bake a batch of Anzac biscuits. 

For people who don't know the story - Anzac biscuits originated during WW1 when wives and mothers would bake these oat biscuits to send to the Anzac troops fighting at Gallipoli.

These economical biscuits did not require any eggs, which were scarce during war time, the biscuits travelled well and didn't spoil due to the lack of egg in the recipe.

I love the coconut/oat flavour of these biscuits. When making them I bake half crispy and half softer due to family preferences. 

Anzac Biscuits:

Pre-heat the oven to 160 deg
Makes approx 18 large cookies.

Mix together in a bowl:
1 cup plain flour
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup oats
1 cup soft brown sugar
Melt together in a small saucepan:
125g butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup
2 tablespoons water

Once the butter has melted add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda to the pan and stir.

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry. Form into balls slightly smaller than a golf ball (using wet hands is easier as the mixture is quite sticky).

Place them on a tray and flatten them out.

Bake 15 mins for softer chewy style cookies, 18 - 20 mins for crisp biscuits. Let them cool on the tray for 5 minutes or so before trying to remove them to a cooling rack. They will crisp up more as they cool.

I like my biscuits to be the same size, the way I do this is to use the base of a drinking glass (dipped in cold water) to flatten them out. It's the easiest and quickest way I've found, flatten them out until they are the same size as the base of the glass.

No-Bake Apricot Slice

We are having another extremely windy but beautiful Spring day here in Canterbury. The lawns look like they are covered in confetti from the cherry blossom getting blown around, such a shame as the trees had just come into full bloom. Always the way with mother nature though!

However, I managed to pick a bunch of freesia before the winds flattened them, they smell so beautiful~

It's way too windy to be outdoors working in the garden (which is what I had planned on doing today), so what else is there to do except spinning, knitting and possibly a bit of baking.

I'm trying to cut down on the amount of sugar I use and eat. This recipe does have sugar in the ingredients (biscuits and condensed milk) but I don't add any sugar to the recipe and I also leave off the icing as that is almost pure sugar - instead top it with a few tablespoons of desiccated coconut which is much healthier than icing it:

Apricot Slice (the slightly healthier version)

1 250g packet super wine biscuits, or any other plain biscuit would work, roughly crushed
1/2 cup of desiccated coconut + extra for topping if required
200g condensed milk (half a can)
120g melted butter
1 cup of dried apricots, roughly chopped

A slice tin lined with non stick baking paper




Put everything into a large bowl and mix it all together. Press it into the tin, pressing down well then sprinkle the top with the extra coconut and press that onto the mixture so that it sticks on.

Chill for a minimum of 2 hours, slice into fingers and serve. If you chill it overnight the biscuits will soften nicely, if you eat it straight away it will have a bit of crunch to it.