As our loyal readers have probably noticed, our monthly recipes typically lean on the healthy side of things. For our familiar readers, and you new readers who may be inclined to close this tab after we dropped the hint of exclusively healthy recipes, we’re throwing a wrench in the pattern this month and making biccies! That’s right – no gimmick, full tastiness biccies. Since the holiday is just around the corner, we decided to shine some light on our fav Aussie staple, the ANZAC biccie. Did you know that they’re only recognised in New Zealand and Australia? Other parts of the world have no clue what the heck a ‘biccie’ is, let alone an ANZAC biccie.

 

So why are we changing up our healthy dinner ideas this month? With the ANZAC public holiday coming up quick, it’s not unlikely that we will all enjoy a sweet ANZAC snack. Although these biscuits grew in popularity because families of deployed soldiers would send the biscuits in care packages, today they are much more of a retail item. When food is being mass produced, you are going to find a lot more preservatives and additives being used. Taking the control of what you consume into your own hands is almost always better. You get to choose the ingredients (like cage-free eggs or fresh vs powdered milk), be aware of all that is baked inside, and as a bonus you even get bragging rights for being a modern day Martha.

 

The ANZAC biscuit recipe is pretty simple. When skimming through the ingredients list, you may be a bit surprised with what you see. The first thing we noticed about our recipe, is that there is only a handful of ingredients. The other shocker is that there are no eggs! ANZAC biscuits were originally made without eggs for two reasons: 1) As we mentioned briefly, these biccies were to made to shipped overseas and those doing the baking wanted to ensure that the treats wouldn’t spoil and 2) the egg scarcity during the war. Think about it, a lot of the farmers were deployed, so there were far less eggs on the market.

 

So without further adieu, we give you the ingredient list for the tasty treats:

 

Total time: 30 minutes

 

Ingredients

 

2 cups of rolled oats

2 cups of flour

1.5 cups of sugar

250g of butter

4 tablespoons of golden syrup

1 teaspoon of baking soda

2 tablespoons of boiling water

Butter or oil to grease tray

2 cups of coconut (optional)

 

Tools

 

Measuring cups

Measuring spoons

Kettle or pot (for boiling water)

Oven tray

Mixing bowl and spoon

Saucepan

Fork

 

Method

 

1. First thing first, get your oven preheated to 160℃ and grease your oven tray.

 

1. Combine the oats, flour, sugar, and coconut into your mixing bowl.

 

1. Now take your butter and golden syrup and combine in the saucepan. Place over medium heat until butter is melted, stirring occasionally. Once the butter is melted, remove the saucepan from the burner.

 

1. Mix the boiling water and baking soda in a cup and add to the butter and syrup. Mixing the baking soda with the boiling water before adding the the other ingredients ensures that the baking soda will be completely mixed in, because if you take a bite of a cookie and get a chunk of baking soda, it’s going to scar you for a long time.

 

1. Stir the baking soda and butter bowl and make sure they’re all mixed up, and then add it to the dry mixing bowl and mix even more.

 

1. Now we get our hands dirty! Grab a small chunk of dough (roughly the size of a tablespoon, give or take) and roll it between both hands to make a beautiful, round dough ball. Plop it down on the greased oven tray and continue with the rest of the dough. The balls should be evenly spaced out, roughly 5 centimetres to allow a bit of expanding.

 

1. Lightly press each dough ball with a fork before baking for 20 minutes. Keep an eye on your biccies as they bake since, like people, every oven is different  and some may bake quicker.

 

Once the biccies are cooked, let them cool and you’re good to go. Please note that these treats are best consumed with friends before, during, or after an ANZAC day bushwalk. Make sure to slip a brag into the conversation about your badass baking skills.

 

We love ditching the expected store bought treats and instant dinners. We have a lot of fun making each recipe our own and tackling new DIYs. Not only does it give us the opportunity to get creative, but it’s one of the ways that we can go against the flow! If you made your own ANZAC biccies, did something a bit unique or love to stand out and be no one but yourself, use our hashtag #GoAgainstTheFlow on Insta and Facebook so we can follow all of the incredible ways our community stands out!