Persimmon Cookies (Egg-free and dairy-free)

When I was little, persimmons were a rare treat. They were also astringent, which means that the skin is inedible. So we had to wait until they were soft and squishy on the inside, and then scoop the sweet pulp out with a spoon.

These days you can buy persimmons with edible skin, and eat them hard like apples, or wait until they become so ripe that they're soft and mushy. We had a few too many mushy ones, so I decided to try making some persimmon cookies.

These cookies are quite easy to make. The Carnivore's sister helped me do the mixing. The cookies are a bit soft & cakey on the inside and remind me a little of gingerbread. These yummy treats only survived two days in our house, and I made four trays of them!

Egg-free and Dairy-free Persimmon Cookies

` Makes about 40

Ingredients

• 2 ripe persimmons, pureed (I also peeled mine)
• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 egg replacer (1 heaped tsp No Egg with 2 tbsp water)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup (100g) non-dairy spread e.g. nuttelex
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan forced/350°F ).
2. Stir flour, bicarb soda and spices together, set aside.
3. Cream together nuttelex and sugar until fluffy.
4. Add egg replacer and persimmon and beat until combined.
5. Add the dry ingredients from step 2 and mix with the beater.
6. Stir in nuts and raisins.
7. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased tray. Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly golden.

Note: These cookies don't really spread much when cooked, so you can place them fairly close together on the tray

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"!