ANZAC biscuit log - Eat Well Recipe - NZ Herald (2024)

FAQs

What makes Anzac biscuits crunchy or chewy? ›

To make your biscuits extra crispy try cooking them on a lower temperature for a few minutes longer or, add an extra teaspoon of boiling water to your biscuit mix. For a chewier texture, add a little more golden syrup (just pull back on the sugar to adjust the overall sweetness) and bake them slightly less in the oven.

But watch for crumbling or "melting": "If your biscuits are falling apart, then you have added too much of the wet ingredients, or potentially too much sugar," Quinn says. The marine biologist-turned-cook advises leaving the biscuits on the baking tray as they cool, then giving them a day or two to "chewify".

When it comes to Anzac biscuits, people have differing ideas. I've created this recipe, so there's a mix of crunchy and chewy if you get your baking times right. If you under bake these, they'll be soft; if you over bake, they'll become a little harder, although they shouldn't become like rocks, as they'd burn first.

The basic ingredients for a rolled oat biscuit were rolled oats, sugar, flour, butter with golden syrup, not eggs, used as a binding agent. This made them not only nutritious and full of energy but also long lasting.

Best substitute for golden syrup is a combination of light molasses or treacle, plus honey. I use 1 part molasses or treacle, and 3 parts honey – the flavour is nearly identical, and the colour is very similar (a bit darker).

Don't let the mixture stand around.

So, make sure you roll and bake the mixture as soon as possible after mixing to make rolling and flattening of the biscuits easy. If it does get a little dry you can just mix in another tablespoon or two of water to help make it a little more pliable before shaping.

Baking soda or bicarb soda is the main raising agent in Anzac biscuits - it is added to the wet ingredients before being mixed into the dry ingredients.

Australians are divided over how Anzac biscuits should be served, with an overwhelming majority preferring them soft but a vocal minority in support of a crunchy consistency.

“Referring to these products as 'Anzac Cookies' is generally not approved, due to the non-Australian overtones,” the guidelines state. The Department says on its website: “No person may use the word Anzac, or any word resembling it in connection with any trade, business, calling or profession.”

Anzac biscuits have long been associated with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) established in World War I. It has been claimed that these biscuits were sent by wives and women's groups to soldiers abroad because the ingredients do not spoil easily and the biscuits kept well during naval transportation.

What can you replace coconut with in Anzac biscuits? ›

My partner wants to make Anzac biscuits for a friend of ours who is deathly allergic to all nuts, including coconut. What would be a good substitute for it? The best thing we can think of is flax meal or ground oats with some added coconut-free coconut flavouring.

Honey: Similar in color, taste, and texture to golden syrup, honey is a good substitute for treacle. Look for a thick amber honey, rather than a super-light honey. Use the same amount of honey as you would golden syrup in a recipe.

Imagine my surprise when I googled a recipe and discovered they are basically Anzac biscuits without the coconut! Even the method is basically the same. Is this another case of Aussie adoption, like Russell Crowe, Pavlova and Phar Lap? Who knows, all I can say is they are as good as the store bought version.

The original Anzac biscuit was known as an Anzac wafer or tile and, along with beef bully, was part of the rations given to our soldiers during World War I. They were included instead of bread because they had a much longer shelf-life.

In the case of Australian slang, words are clipped, and then a diminutive suffix is added to the clipped word. In this case, bikkie (the colloquial Australian word for a cookie), is clipped slang for biscuit (the British English word for a type of cookie), and it uses the -ie diminutive suffix.

According to taste.com.au Food Editor Miranda Payne, the traditional Anzac biscuit was the harder, crunchy version. Over time, the original recipe was modified with variations being cooked for less time (making them chewier) or adding more sugar (so they're super crispy).

Australians are divided over how Anzac biscuits should be served, with an overwhelming majority preferring them soft but a vocal minority in support of a crunchy consistency.

Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies. Why use melted butter? Melted butter creates cookies with a different texture compared to cookies made with softened or creamed butter.