Anzac biscuits for ANZAC day

Yesterday I attended my very first Dawn Service. I don't know why I have stayed away for so long - although I suspect that it is in no small part related to my love of sleep - and I'm a little ashamed of it, but I'm glad I went because it was quite the experience. I couldn't actually see anything (because I had cut it too fine with the whole getting up thing so there was quite a crowd by the time I arrived), nor could I hear much (a stiff sea breeze rendered the PA system more or less useless), but the energy there was incredible. I know this will sound all new-age hippie of me, but I have noticed that when a large group of people feels a particular emotion, sometimes you can feel it too. Well, that's what happened to me. The sorrow there was palpable, and the longer I stood there the heavier the weight of it felt. I don't think I've experienced group emotion like that so powerfully before, and it was abundantly apparent that everybody was using the occasion as an opportunity to grieve those who have died serving our country, or perhaps those who served and who have since passed. I know that I personally take such days as ANZAC day as an opportunity to think of my Gramps, who served in the Navy both here and in Britain for 52 years. But I realised this year that I have never really treated ANZAC day, or Rememberance Day, for that matter, to honour those who served or who continue to serve, and who are still with us. I think that perhaps in the future my focus may change to include these people, too.

Of course, my other focus on ANZAC day is on Anzac Biscuits. It's always about the food with me, isn't it...

Anzac Biscuits - CWA/Weekly Times - Country Classics

(Note - this recipe is identical to all other Anzac Biscuit recipes I have ever used, and yet, they always come out very differently each time. Sometimes they're crunchy, sometimes they're chewy. Sometimes they're fat, and sometimes they just go "blllluuuurpppppp" and turn out to be flat and odd-shaped. Weird, huh?)

INGREDIENTS:

1c SR flour

1c sugar

1c desiccated coconut

1c rolled oats

125g butter

1tbsp golden syrup

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

2tbsp boiling water

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 180oC. Grease baking trays or line them with paper.

Mix first 4 dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Make sure you get all the flour off the bottom mixed through othrewise you'll have mixing issues later on.

Melt butter with golden syrup in a saucepan. Try not to let the butter burn or boil. Also, really, really load your spoon up with golden syrup, because when the spoon ends up in your mouth, you can be certain that there's a tablespoon-worth in the saucepan. Very important.

Mix bicarb soda with boiling water in a mug then quickly tip it into the butter mixture and swirl it about. At this point it would be prudent to suggest using a larger saucepan than you would normally anticipate needing for melting half a block of butter, because this mixture will go off like a frog in a sock... by which I mean become a little uncontrollable...! and may erupt all over your stovetop if the saucepan is too small.

Mix this delightfully fluffy and magical mixture through the dry ingredients.

Roll mixture into balls - I opted to make them about the size of 1tbsp, but in true CWA style the recipe didn't specify (seriously, this is what I LOVE about CWA recipes - things like pan sizes, greasing tins, preheating ovens, cooking times etc. aren't often mentioned, because they've used the same pan for fifty years and that's just the pan you use, or you cook it "until it looks right". Pure gold!).

Bake until brown (again, thankyou for specifying, CWA!) which in this case was somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes. I suggest you sit in front of the oven and salivate until they look right. You may, during this time, notice the biscuits rising alarmingly during the cooking process - I panicked and squashed one tray's worth with a fork - but as it turns out it was unnecessary and they settled down on their own. They also turned out to be the most uniform, perfect-looking bunch of Anzac Biscuits I have ever made. Yummmmmm.

It seems so wrong that something as good as these came out of such an awful situation, doesn't it.