Some call them cookies: Anzac Biscuits

The school where I teach has a program called JanTerm – a 8-9 day period after Christmas break where students take four 80 minute classes per day that are outside of the regular curriculum. This year I decided to teach a baking class called Cookies around the World. We are baking cookies/desserts from 8 different countries and learning about how the cookie came to be so popular in its respective culture. I have been testing out recipes, my husband being the taste tester, to make sure they work before I attempt to make them with 24 junior high and high school students.

Today I made Anzac Biscuits from Australia, chewy butterscotch-flavored oatmeal and coconut cookies. We could not believe how good they were. They would be delicious with a cup of tea or coffee… or just a glass of milk which was what I had. I think their amazing flavor comes from butter (of course), but also golden syrup, an ingredient I had to buy online. It is a sticky, golden-colored, sweet, almost butterscotchy syrup that is a form of inverted sugar syrup (a syrup made by splitting sucrose into fructose and glucose). Many recipes I found said you could substitute corn syrup for golden syrup, which I’m sure would result in the same texture, but I don’t think the flavor would be nearly as good. I wish it were sold in stores around here so I could make these cookies more often. I guess buying it on amazon.com isn’t the worst case scenario.

The ingredients are very simple: flour, oats, sugar, butter, coconut, golden syrup, and baking soda.

The anzac biscuits were first created during World War I when mothers and wives of soldiers were concerned about the nutritional value of the food being supplied to the soldiers. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The food was transported on very slow-moving ships which took up to two months to reach their destinations, requiring the food to be edible after a long period of time. The women decided to make a biscuit with oats as the basis. The other ingredients they used were able to last for long periods of time as well. There are no eggs in these cookies as many of the poultry farmers had joined the service and eggs were hard to come by. The golden syrup was used as a binding agent instead (good choice!). They packaged the biscuits in airtight metal tins to keep them as fresh as possible. During World War II with refrigeration now available, anzac biscuits weren’t made nearly as often. Today they are still enjoyed regularly in Australia and are also often used by veterans’ organizations to raise funds for the care and welfare of aged war veterans.

 

Anzac Biscuits                                                                        

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup flour
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup sugar
½ cup (1 stick) butter
2 Tbl golden syrup or corn syrup
2 Tbl water
1 tsp baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Add the oats, flour, coconut and sugar to a large bowl and mix together.

2. Add the butter, golden syrup and water to small saucepan. Set over a low flame and heat until the butter is completely melted, whisking all the ingredients together. Remove from heat and stir in the baking soda.

3. Pour the butter mixture into the dry ingredients and use a spatula or fork to mix the ingredients together.

4. Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter onto a greased baking pan, leaving room for them spread out a bit. Bake for anywhere from 10 to 12 minutes. The shorter time will yield chewy biscuits. Baked for the longer time, the biscuits become crispier.

Christmas cards and gift tags no more…

I'm cheap and didn’t want to buy thank you cards for the Christmas presents we received this year. I also don’t like throwing things away. So I had a solution for both of those problems. Turn the Christmas tags and cards I had gotten into thank you cards! I began with a pack of plain white cards and envelopes. I already had these, but if you don’t, you can buy 50 of them for under $10 on amazon.com.

What started as a "Season's Greetings" card with an adorable snowman on it, ended up as a simple thank you card. I used my paper cutter to cut the snowman off from the front of the card, and double-sided tape to stick it onto my blank white card. 

Pretty gift tags are the easiest to work with because usually the writing is on the back of the tag. I had a few tags from last Christmas that worked perfectly.

 



One card I left almost as is, just cutting out the front and putting it on a blank card.

I used the back of the card and a small piece of wrapping paper to make a second card as well.

A Charlie Brown card fit perfectly on a blank card once I cut off the greeting.

I used two cards to make the next one - the front of one and the back of a second.

 

This would work well with wrapping paper or ribbon as well. Be creative!

DIY Indoor Christmas Wreaths

While reading the December issue of Martha Stewart Living, I saw a picture of five homemade wreaths made of greenery and red ribbon hanging inside in a window. I thought this would be the perfect solution for my wall of mirrors in the dining room. I had some twiggy garland that I hadn’t used for any decorations and decided to cut it up into five pieces to form my wreaths. I used rubber bands to make each piece of garland into a circle. They were all a little bit different sizes, which I wanted. I didn't want it to look too perfect.

Following Martha’s instructions (although she used embroidery hoops as her base), I used a hot glue gun to glue cedar branches that I had collected from my parents’ house onto the wreath. Using a hot glue gun turned out to work very well and it was so easy. Each wreath took about 5-10 minutes and cost me nothing, as I had all the supplies already! I had red velvet ribbon that I knew would be perfect for hanging the wreaths. I cut the ribbon to the desired lengths (this took some adjusting, as the first time it looked too symmetric). Then, I nailed the ribbon at the top in the corner where the wall meets the ceiling with small wire nails.

I love how the mirrored wall is no longer the focus, but instead the natural, beautiful wreaths are. I just need to think of a way to use this idea for other times of year…

Brown Paper Packages Tied up With String...

Ok, I really don’t like that song, but as I was wrapping presents I couldn’t get it out of my head. I decided to wrap my Christmas presents in brown paper this year. I hate not having wrapping paper for the other times of year because all I have is Christmas paper, so this year, I decided to buy a roll of brown paper, and that could serve as my everything paper – birthdays, Christmas, and whatever else I happened to want to wrap. You can buy brown paper from Target or any other store that selling wrapping paper or mailing supplies. I love how thick it is compared to some of the thin cheap wrapping paper out there. I think this idea would be beautiful with white paper as well.

Not only is it economical, but I think it looks beautiful to have such simple presents under the tree.  I love the look of all the paper looking the same so the beautiful ribbon can stand out. And saving money on wrapping paper allowed me to spend money on ribbon. I bought various types of ribbon that I have mixed and matched. My favorites are the red and white raffia and the scalloped felt ribbon from World Market. These are a few of my favorite things...

Merry Christmas!