Recipe: ANZAC Biscuits for ANZAC Day

This Monday is ANZAC Day here in Australia so what better way to pay tribute to the ANZACs than to make and consume some ANZAC Biscuits. For those of you not from Australia or New Zealand, ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The biscuits are cookies, believed to be sent to (or some say even made by) soldiers in WWI. They are believed to have been developed (without eggs due to their lack of availability during wartime) to withstand transport and to keep well for a long period of time. Here's a recipe I recommend:

Chewy ANZAC Biscuits



Preparation time: about 25 minutes (excludes baking time)
Makes about 25 biscuits.

Ingredients:

• 100g butter
• 40ml (1 tablespoon) golden syrup
• 92g (1 cup) rolled oats
• 80g (1 cup) desiccated coconut
• 150g (1 cup) plain flour
• 112g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
• 56g (1/4 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon (6g) bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 40ml (2 tablespoons) boiling water

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Celsius fan-forced). If you will be baking one tray of biscuits at a time, place an oven rack in the centre of the oven. If you wish to bake two trays of biscuits at a time, place one oven rack in the upper half of the oven and one in the lower half of the oven.
2. Line one or two large baking trays with baking paper.
3. Place butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally.
4. Place oats, coconut, flour, caster sugar and brown sugar in a large bowl.
5. Stir together until well combined.
6. When butter has melted, combine bicarb soda and boiling water in a small bowl or cup, and then stir into the butter and golden syrup mixture.
7. Add butter mixture to dry ingredients.
8. Stir ingredients together until well combined.
9. Roll level, firmly packed tablespoons of the mixture into balls or if using a round tablespoon to measure, just leave as spoon shaped mounds.
10. Place dough balls/mounds about 5cm apart on the prepared tray/s.
11. Using your fingers or a fork, slightly flatten the dough balls/mounds to form 1cm thick, 5cm diameter discs.
12. Bake for about 15-16 minutes, until biscuits are golden brown but still soft (a longer cooking time will produce crisper, drier biscuits). If you aren't using a fan-forced oven, and are baking two trays of biscuits at a time, swap the positions of the trays halfway through the baking time. This will allow the biscuits to cook more evenly. You may also need to extend the baking time by a few minutes.
13. Cool biscuits on trays for about three minutes, and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
14. Store cooled biscuits in an airtight container. The biscuits will soften over time.