The Best Wartime Cookie You've Never Heard Of (Maybe)
Yesterday, D.C. Metro riders were glued to the Washington Post's food section. 'Twas the annual Cookie edition! With 26 recipes, it got fudgy, nutty, fruity (and fatty, but whatever). One twenty-sixth of it especially struck me. The ANZAC biscuit, an all-caps acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, which doesn't usually appear until April on its eponymous holiday.
According to urban legend (un-scary ones), World War I care packages were filled with these oaty rockstars to feed fighters. As a Serious Eats reader back in August put it wisely, they're "like oatmeal cookies on steroids, and they keep forever."
Last night I attempted the bellicose biscuits, and added a few personal touches.
About the author: Erin Zimmer, Serious Eats's Washington, D.C., correspondent, is a just-graduated Georgetown gal following her nose about town as Washingtonian magazine's Dining intern and Best Bites blogger. She got her start as the Hoya campus paper's food columnist, and since entering "real person-hood" has ached for her dining hall's omelet station.
ANZAC Biscuits, An Adaptation of an Adaptation
- makes 48 cookies -
Adapted from the Washington Post's Cookie edition (Dec 12 2007), which adapted from "The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion" (Countryman Press, 2004)
Ingredients
1 cup rolled oats (do not use quick-cooking or instant)
1 cup whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup shredded sweetened coconut
1 cup trail mix (mine was Bear Naked brand, with dried crans, chocolate chips, pumpkin seeds and cashews)
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons boiling water
Procedure
1. Preheat to 350 degrees. Combine the oats, flour, sugar, coconut and trail mix in a large bowl.
2. Combine the butter and syrup (or honey) in a small saucepan over medium heat; cook for a few minutes, until the butter has melted and the syrup is bubbling.
3. Combine the baking soda and water in a small bowl and add it, stirring, to the butter mixture, which will foam up immediately. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined.
4. Drop heaping teaspoonfuls of the dough onto baking sheets. Bake for 12 minutes (though Washington Post will tell you to bake for 7 to 10 minutes, then rotate the sheets top to bottom and front to back, baking another 8 to 10 minutes). Cool until the cookies are crisp.
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15 Comments:
I'm not australian, but I'm under the impression that the thing that makes an anzac biscuit is golden syrup. I see it is sadly lacking here :(
jennywenny at 6:01PM on 12/13/07
Erin, do you think this would hold up without the (yuck) coconut?
Other than that, these sound like my kind of cookie!
Curlz at 6:09PM on 12/13/07
Yesterday while reading the article, I was drooling! Loved the lay-out & reading all of the recipes---amazing variety with a cookie to meet everyone's taste preference. Your ANZAC ingredients are to my liking---thanks!
JEP at 6:12PM on 12/13/07
Yeah, I was all prepared to ask what was the ideal substitute for the Lyle's golden syrup. Honey or maple seem like too distinctive flavors, but what difference would that make for me (not being Australian and never having eaten any ANAZAC biscuit).
Just curious: why the whole wheat flour?
renzata at 6:24PM on 12/13/07
Interesting: Australian government specifically does not want these referred to as cookies ("Anzac" being a protected word):
http://www.dva.gov.au/commem/news/protection.htm
Does this website serve a "commercial purpose"?
renzata at 6:29PM on 12/13/07
This is remarkable:
"Approvals for the word 'Anzac' to be used on biscuit products have been given on the proviso that the product generally conforms to the traditional recipe and shape, is not advertised in any way that would play on Australia's military heritage, and is not used in association with the word 'cookies', which is considered to have non-Australian overtones."
cmballa at 7:00PM on 12/13/07
i love love love bear naked!!! best trail mix!!!
chlamers at 7:48PM on 12/13/07
The honey/maple syrup is a barely acceptable substitution. You might come a little closer with a corn syrup/molasses mixture, if you can't find golden syrup.
I'm afraid that the trail mix is just plain wrong.
zamboni at 11:24PM on 12/13/07
A few responses...
1. The No Golden Syrup part= Yes, it was taboo, and I apologize to those offended. With none on me, honey seemed just as golden and syrupy. (Okay, bees don't make golden syrup, but...) Molasses is probably more akin, you're right.
2. Sans Coconut= Hmm. I'm a coco-nut myself, but given my no-rules approach to this, I'd say give it a whirl!
3. Whole Wheat Flour= My mom's influence. She does it with everything, not necessarily for health benefits but for the nuttier flavor. Maybe don't replace it on a red velvet or vanilla cake. Unless you don't mind a freaky brown velvet cake.
4. Bear Naked Love= AGREED. Though it can be a bit pricey..
5. Trail Mix Hatred= Eek, you sound like a purist, zamboni! And I respect that.
Erin Zimmer at 2:15PM on 12/14/07
This raises the interesting question of how far you can adapt a recipe and still call it by the same name. Not quite like those epicurious reviews (you know the kind: "I used pork chops instead of shrimp and substituted grape juice for the white wine. Instead of grilling, I put in the microwave. This recipe tasted weird and I wont make it again, 1 star..."), but apparently this recipe has a proud and firm tradition behind it that even the government wants to protect. (Whether or not that's appropriate is a different story, but I guess it's like a DOC appellation).
But at some point, an adapter has to admit that what they made is simply something else, however tasty and deserving of publication it may be.
In other words, these cookies look pretty good, and I'd like to eat one, but they don't look terribly much like Anzac biscuits.
renzata at 2:44PM on 12/14/07
Renzata, you hit the nail on the head. Pinned the tail on the donkey.
I grapple with this one constantly since my inner-itch is always telling me to deconstruct recipes. But there's always a few fundamental ingredients that I don't touch. As a non-Aussie, I had no qualms about omitting the golden syrup and recklessly adding trail mix. The oaty, coconutty textures seemed conducive. But if you ask me to skip on the buttermilk or baking soda in Irish soda bread, I might throw a fit..
Erin Zimmer at 3:15PM on 12/14/07
Sorry, Erin - I didn't mean to be narky. Renzata puts it more appropriately: these are probably excellent oatmeal trail mix cookies, but they wander a little too far from the source to be Anzac biscuits.
(On the ANZAC thing: it's a major part of Australian cultural identity. The best explanation I can give to Americans about Anzac Day is that it's essentially July 4th and Memorial Day rolled into one, with less fireworks and more solemnity.)
zamboni at 6:44PM on 12/14/07
Oh gosh, I realise I sounded really snarky! I just think the world would be a lot better place with more golden syrup! Its quite easy to find if you're in a big ish city. In san diego you can get it at cost plus world market or any of the british shops, of which there are at least 3.
jennywenny at 7:01PM on 12/14/07
Nothing wrong with snarkiness! I like it. Almost as much as I like cookies.
Erin Zimmer at 10:23AM on 12/21/07
Ok. Firstly I am an Aussie, but I can understand that the Anzac biscuit isn't an icon in the US, so the overall integrity of the original recipe isn't as important to you guys. That said, we do mess with the recipe here, using wholegrain flour like Erin has in her recipe, adding wattleseed (probably not available over there) or sunflower seeds for added crunch. Using honey is ok too, though I'd probably suggest using dark corn syrup as we substitute golden syrup for dark corn syrup in Australia where it isn't readily available unless you can find it in a gourmet food store (where you also have to go to find Crisco and canned pumpkin pie puree). I probably wouldn't include the trail mix either, that makes them more muesli cookies rather than an Anzac biscuit.
As for the Anzac's, they're the Aussie and New Zealand soldiers who were in the battle at Gallipoli in WWI, those that made it out were very, very lucky. Each State of Australia has an ANZAC Day (25th April) march where returned soldiers and family members of deceased soldiers from all of the wars of 20th century can march the city streets. Memorial services are held at dawn too, to remember all of the fallen and those that made it home. It's a public holiday, and an important part of our culture. It's all about bravery and sticking by your mates.
Just a note on the cookie/biscuit debate, they're definitely a biscuit, mainly because they've got crunch, cookies tend to be softer.
All that said, I hope you all will try the recipe as it's one of those recipes that you will make again and again. Oh, and remember to make them about chocolate chip cookie size, they're better when they're bigger, and trust me, it's hard to stop at just one!
This is the recipe I use:
http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/ARTICLE.aspx?id=39062
Dessicated coconut is just shredded, unsweetened coconut. Caster sugar is superfine sugar, but normal granulated sugar can be used.
Jocelyn7 at 11:35PM on 12/30/07