ANZAC Biscuits

I cooked these from a recipe from Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks blog which I love.

They are DELICIOUS. And very easy. I first made them for a birthday picnic for around 20 friends and they went down a storm. Oats are cheap,

Here is her recipe:

There are many other things you can do with the tasty Anzac dough. It's great as a cobbler topping, or even a tart base. Leftover cookies keep well in an air-tight container for a few days. Have fun experimenting with other zests or spice additions, anything that pairs nicely with oats and coconut will likely work here. For a more traditional Anzac cookie leave out the orange zest and orange blossom water.

You need:
1 cup flour (all-purpose or whole wheat pastry)

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup fine grain natural cane sugar OR brown sugar

1 cup finely shredded non-sweetened coconut (dessicated coconut)

scant 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 cup butter, cut into little cubes2 tablespoons golden syrup or honeyzest of one medium orange
1 tablespoon boiling water

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon orange blossom water*

To make:
Preheat oven to 325F degrees. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl; flour, oats, sugars, and coconut. Mix well.
In a small saucepan over low heat combine the butter syrup (or honey)I made it with butter and sugar, but you cold easily use golden syrup, which is also more typical for ANZAC biccies, and orange zest. Stir until melted and remove from heat. In a small bowl whisk together the boiling water and baking soda. Stir it into the butter. Now pour the butter mixture over the big bowl of oats and stir. Add the orange blossom water and stir again. This is a dough I like to mix it with my hands to make sure the butter is evenly distributed and the dough is moist throughout. I baked this batch of cookies in a well-buttered, heart-shaped cast iron pan, but you can simply drop them by the tablespoonful onto parchment lined baking sheets. Make sure they aren't too flat or they will get crispy. Bake for about 12 minutes or until deeply golden.**
Makes 18 - 24 medium cookies.

*Orange blossom water is sometimes available on Amazon.com, for example here and here. I also find it regularly at places like Whole Foods Markets and/or other natural food stores.
** The most recent batch that I baked in the heart-shaped pan took more like 20 minutes to fully bake and brown. Free-form on a baking sheet will take less - 12 minutes or so.

• If you are diabetic you might want to use agave nectar in place of the sugar/ syrup.


• Think about adding dried cranberries, raisins or chopped dried apricots.

photo- from Heidi's blog