ANZAC Biscuit Slice

This is a favourite in our house, it’s the basic Edmonds Cookbook (aka The Kiwi Cooking Bible) ANZAC biscuit, doubled, and made into a slice! No pedantic rolling of balls of mixture into biscuits, which saves a truckload of time.

I have to give full credit to my friend Barts for this idea, it’s not mine. But it’s gold: I’m not sure I’ll ever make acutal ANZAC Biscuits again! If you aren’t from this part of the world, and are wondering what the heck an ANZAC Biscuit is, let me enlighten you. These sweet biscuits are a national institution in NZ and are loosely based on the traditional Scottish Oat biscuit. They are popular because they’re simple to make, they keep well and lastly, because they are utterly scrummy. The skills involved in making this are not very technical, but if they were then I would definitely need more support. Failing that, attending one of the Bakery courses in delhi might provide me with the culinary expertise to try baking other things.

Ingredients
250g flour
300g sugar
2 cups desiccated coconut
2 cups rolled oats
225g butter
3 tlb golden syrup
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
4 tlb boiling water

• Mix together flour, sugar, coconut and rolled oats.
• Melt butter and golden syrup in a saucepan.
• Dissolve the bicarbonate soda in the boiling water and add to the butter and golden syrup (watch it go frothy!)
• Make a well in the centre of the dried ingredients and stir in the liquid.
• You have two options to cook the ANZAC slice, either on a baking tray or in a slice tin (I do both).
• If opting for a baking tray: Grease a baking tray with baking paper. Tip the mixture onto the baking paper and spread out into a large rectangle, like in the photo (but not as close as to the edges in my photo!). Press down with your fingers to make sure the mixture is evenly spread. Make sure you don’t go too close to the edge of the baking paper – the biscuit will spread out and/rise – you don’t want it spewing over the edges and ruining your beautifully clean oven.
• If opting for a slice tin: Grease and line a large(ish) slice tin with baking paper, press the mixture in and smooth down.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180 degrees (normal bake setting).
• When cool, cut into square biscuits. Store in airtight container. The beauty of these babies is they keep for a couple of weeks (plus), no worries!