ANZAC BISCUITS

According to Wikipedia, ANZAC Day is a ‘national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour the members of the  Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman during World War 1.’ The meaning of the day has been further broadened to include those killed in ALL military operations in which the two countries have been involved.
The story of the biscuits goes that the wives, mothers, sisters, girlfriends of the soldiers would bake these and send them across the oceans to the soldiers in battle.

So, in commemoration, every 25th of April you will find ANZAC biscuits all over these two countries, and now in a kitchen near you, if you’d like to make them. This recipe is care of my great friend (and native Australian) Dimity Jones, whose blog Three to One I have followed for a very long time. You can see it here.

Dim arrived one morning for tea and produced a container full of these delightful treats that she had brought back from a recent trip to Australia. Her mum, Sandy Jones, (whose birthday happens to be on ANZAC Day!) had made a batch and Dimity was determined to bring some back, so she did. Lucky for me because they were  DELICIOUS!

Full of oats, syrup, desiccated coconut, lots of butter but interestingly enough, no eggs. Eggs were scarce during WW1 but more than that, the inclusion of eggs would cause the biscuits to spoil during the long trip from Down Under to Gallipoli (now modern day Turkey).

The trip back from Calala, near Tamworth, New South Wales to New York was probably a little shorter for Dimity than the trip those soldiers must have taken by boat almost 100 years ago, but like them, she had a parcel of  ANZAC biscuits in her luggage to remind her of home when her plane landed at JFK.

The recipe follows, and I do urge you to make them because they are GOOD.

 

 

 

 

ANZAC BISCUITS

Recipe  from Sandy Jones in Tamworth, NSW, inspired from a recipe by Margaret Fulton.  

4 oz Butter

1 tablespoon of Treacle or Golden Syrup.

2 tablespoons of boiling water.

1 & half teaspoons of Bicarbonate of soda

1 cup of Rolled Oats

3/4 of a cup of Desiccated Coconut.

1 cup of Plain Flour

1 cup Sugar

Preheat your oven to 300F / 150 C.

Put all your dry ingredients in a bowl first and mix well. Next, melt the butter and treacle/syrup over gentle heat. While the butter and syrup are melting, add the boiling water with bicarbonate of soda in a small bowl. Pour wet ingredients  into mixed dry ingredients and blend well. Roll dessertspoons of the mixture in your hands and put on to a greased baking tray making sure to space them out. (They expand as they cook). Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Cool on trays. Remove and store in air tight containers when cool.

For all the fallen ANZAC soldiers, from then till now.

 

 

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