Around the World in Food – Australia, part 1

We’ve recently started a new tradition in our house.  Every Sunday we’re going to make a dinner from a different country around the world.  Notice I said _we’re_ going to make this.  It’s a family effort and we are having a blast with this!  Cooking, learning new things about a country, debating the country we’re going to do the following week, etc.  Great fun 🙂

So the first week was Australia.  Our meal consisted of wonderfully flavored meat pies, mashed potatoes, a delicious kiwi-banana-papaya fruit salad, and Anzac biscuits (cookies).  Notice what’s missing?  No vegetables!  Don’t know if they have a salad every night or what, but we all enjoyed it.  This is how we all were after dinner…

Let’s start with the dessert, shall we?  After all, that is the best part of dinner, no? 🙂

Anzac biscuits have long been associated with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) established in World War I.  According to Wikipedia, there are claims that these cookies were sent by wives to soldiers abroad because the ingredients do not spoil easily and they kept well during transport.  The spoilage part doesn’t make sense tho ’cause even if they had eggs in them (they don’t), the cookies were cooked.  How would they spoil?  What does make sense is that they would travel well.  These are a sturdy, crunchy cookie, but oh so good 🙂

So let’s get to these, shall we?

Unfortunately I wasn’t thinking so don’t have pictures of these in process.  The only difficult part of these is that the dough looks like crumbles when you’re done mixing it.  I found the best part was to grab handfuls, squish them into balls, and put them on my parchment-lined baking sheet.  They baked up just fine.

ANZAC BISCUITS (cookies)

(adapted from Aussie-Info.com)

Ingredients:

1 c. (90 g) rolled oats (I used quick oats; I’m sure old-fashioned would be fine as well.)

3/4 c. (54 g) shredded coconut

1 c. (120 g) all-purpose flour

1 c. (200 g) white sugar

1 stick (4 oz, 114 g) butter

2 T (30 ml, 41 g) light corn syrup

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 T (15 ml or g) hot water

Directions:

1.  These bake much longer than most cookies do, but at a lower temperature, so preheat your oven to 300 F (150 C).

2.  Line your cookie sheets with parchment.  (Lightly grease your cookie sheet if you don’t have a liner or parchment.  Note that parchment is wonderful — non-stick and easy cleanup!  I use Reynold’s or Wilton brands and just wipe mine off and stick it in the freezer for future use, reusing most sheets 4 or 5 times each.)

3.  Mix oats, flour, sugar, and coconut together in a large bowl.  Set aside.

4.  Place butter and corn syrup in a small saucepan and melt over medium heat.

5.  Mix hot water and baking soda together in a small bowl and pour into the butter/syrup mixture.

6.  Pour the liquid mixture over the dry ingredients and stir together.

7.  You will notice that the mixture is crumbly.  This is ok!  Grab bunches together with your hands, form balls, and place on your prepared cookie sheets a few inches apart from each other.

8.  Bake for 20 minutes.

9.  Remove from oven and cool on racks.  The cookies should be a golden brown color.

10.  Enjoy!