Comments on: Anzac day baking post

By: Helen

Helen — Sat, 05 May 2007 00:49:44 +0000

Sooz, the recipe is in my Folder of Hand Written Recipes. Once something gets into the FOHWR, its origins become very murky.

There is a thing called the Edmonds Cookbook, which is a veritable bible to noo Zillanders, or people like me who must live with them and absorb their ways.

The EC is most entertaining for its fascinatingly horrible 60s savoury recipes, involving Oxo, prunes and the like, but it does have an Anzac recipe. I checked, but no, that isn’t where I got it from. For the benefit of your Anzac-Off, you MUST have the Edmonds recipe, Edmonds being the institution that it is. It appears to use even less butter than mine, and more coconut.

125 g (4 ozs) flour (Which I interpret as “one cup”
150g (6 ozs) sugar (which I interpret as “3/4 cup”
1 cup of coconut
1 cup of rolled oats
100g (3 1/2 oz) butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
2 tablespoons boiling water

Method is exactly the same, so I won’t bother reproducing it.

Jennifer,
Mine originally came out a bit greasy because the original recipe called for a cup of oats. I discovered if I put in extra oats it improved the texture a whole heap. But in terms of the mixing, jeebus, it’s tough. If you have one of those heavy duty mixers, all power to ya.

By: sooz

sooz — Sat, 05 May 2007 00:13:40 +0000

Thanks for the recipe – can I ask the source if you have one (Cookery the Australian Way by any chance)? I’m adding it into my Anzac -off queue of recipes.

By: Club Troppo » Missing Link - Anzac Day Special Edition

Club Troppo » Missing Link - Anzac Day Special Edition — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 07:41:17 +0000

[...] A highlight of the ANZAC day coverage was this ANZAC biscuit recipe from Helen, with a warning to foreigners that they may not be able to get golden syrup. As long as it’s available in New Zealand, though, this issue doesn’t seem worth expending too much anxiety over. Not to be outdone, Patrick supplies a recipe for ANZAC dahl. Adrian the Cabbie wonders why diggers don’t get more freebies on their special day, describing how one elderly gent thought he’d won the lottery when Adrian waived his fare. [...]

By: shula

shula — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:45:43 +0000

An oldie but a goodie.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 10:00:45 +0000

I made them this morning – I wish I’d had your recipe, as I think mine had too little dry ingredients, and too much butter. Still yummy, but quite greasy!

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 07:34:21 +0000

The foofing is the funnest part. Yes, the burning of the butter/syrup mixture is so easy to do – turn your back for a minute…

For US readers, 125 g butter = “half a stick”.

As Arnie said in one of his movies, “don’t drink and bake”.

By: TimT

TimT — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 03:55:14 +0000

I had completely forgotten about the ‘foofing up’ bit. I cooked Anzac biccies a couple of times as a kid, and sometimes buggered that bit up, or burnt the syrup/butter while melting it.

Thanks for the recipe, I may just have to give it a burl this afternoon!