ANZAC biscuits (egg-free, dairy-free, nut-free)

On ANZAC Day, I thought we should make some dairy-free ANZAC biscuits for the kids. Luckily they are already egg-free, so the only substitution is nuttelex for the butter.

Today I was talking to some people about making them, and someone pondered how they would have coconut during the war. So I did a quick search on the history of ANZAC biscuits. Did you know that the original ANZAC biscuit was called a wafer or tile and was incredibly hard? It also didn't have any coconut.

I have a few books with ANZAC biscuit recipes, but the CWA one seemed the most appropriate to follow. Here it is.

ANZAC Biscuits

Ingredients

1 cup self-raising flour

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup desiccated coconut

1 cup sugar

125g nuttelex, melted

2 Tbs golden syrup

2 Tbs boiling water

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced) and grease baking trays/line trays with baking paper.
2. Sift flour into a bowl. Add dry ingredients (oats, coconut, sugar) and stir to combine.
3. Add bicarbonate of soda to boiling water and mix
4. Add melted nuttelex, golden syrup and boiling water/bicarb.
5. Mix with a spoon to a firm consistency.
6. Place spoonfuls of mixture onto the tray.
7. Bake until brown (approximately 15 minutes).

Notes

• Nuttelex can be melted in the microwave, just zap for about 30-40 seconds
• Shredded coconut can be substituted for dessicated coconut.
• Leaving space to spread is really, really important! Otherwise you will end up with a big sheet of biscuit. You can cut/break it apart and it still tastes ok, but it won't be as pretty. You can see the results below from overcrowding.

Here is what happens if you use a tablespoon and put your blobs too close to each other! It's better to put too few on and make more trays. But the kids certainly enjoyed snapping bits off and eating this "disaster"!