Many moons ago (I won’t say how many…) I worked as a Nanny with a wonderful family with who introduced me to Anzac biscuits. What a biccy!!
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Anzac Day itself is a Remembrance Day, to mark fallen Australian and New Zealander soldiers and this biscuit was accredited to these same men, a little piece of sunshine that they were able to whip up from their rations.
Writing this during the Covid-19 pandemic, that is a good reminder that as bare as we feel our supermarkets may be, we still have a whole load to be grateful for – so let’s celebrate and get baking. This is the perfect recipe to get your children involved in the kitchen too so why not make it a family affair!
Health note: These biscuits can be made gluten free with a couple of very easy tweaks. If you have a blender, definitely try making your own oat flour – it is super quick and easy. In fact, it can be far more budget friendly to do this – if you’re on a strictly gluten-free diet, just check that your bag of oats is from a safe source, with no risk of cross-contamination from wheat.
Anzac Oat Biscuits
Equipment
- Small saucepan
- Large mixing bowl
- Wooden spoon
- Baking sheets and parchment paper or silicon baking mats
- Wire cooling rack
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Oat flour If you wish to cut out the gluten, use 1 cup of oat flour and 2 1/2 tsp gluten-free baking powder.
- 1/2 cup Self-raising flour* *Omit if using 100% oat flour; if you can't find oat flour or don't have time to make it, you can substitute the oat and self-raising for 1 cup plain/all-purpose.
- 1 cup Rolled oats
- 1/4 cup Desiccated coconut Optional, for texture.
- 1/2 cup Golden caster sugar Or brown, cane, white sugar.
- 1/4 cup Coconut sugar Or brown, demerara, muscavado.
- 1/2 tsp. Bicarbonate of soda
- 120 g Butter; plus extra for greasing if using parchment. I use salted but you can use unsalted if you have it to hand.
- 1 tbsp. Maple syrup Or golden syrup, which is the authentic flavour; or honey.
- Cold water Up to 1/4 cup.
- Handful jumbo oats / extra rolled oats Optional: for decoration.
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 160C/320F Fan / 180C / 360F / Gas Mark 4. If using baking sheets, lightly grease your parchment paper and set aside – if using silicon mats, skip this step.
- Place all of your dry ingredients, bar of the bicarbonate of soda, into a large mixing bowl.
- Add the butter and maple syrup into a cold pan with a splash of cold water. Place it over low heat and gently melt the butter.
- Once the butter has melted, remove from the heat. Add in the bicarbonate of soda, quickly stir through the butter and pour the mix onto the dry ingredients. Thoroughly combine all of the ingredients, adding cold water one tablespoon at a time, if necessary, until you can create balls of dough for your biscuits.
Baking
- Taking just over 1 tablespoon of dough at a time, form balls of dough and gently press them onto your baking sheet/mat. The biscuits should be around 1-1.5cm tall, make sure to leave at least 1 inch between each biscuit as they will spread while baking.
- Continue preparing the rest of your biscuits and, if you wish, add a little sprinkle of raw whole oats onto the top of each biscuit. You can very gently press into the surface, taking care not to lose the height of the biscuits.
- Bake the biscuits for 12-14 minutes until golden brown around the edges.
- Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for 10 minutes before removing onto a wire rack. Cool completely, prepare a coffee or a cup of tea and dunk away!
We would love to hear what you think of our dish.
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