Today is Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand (I'm doing New Zealand on a different day, though.) Anzac Day is kind of like Memorial Day in the US. It's a day to commemorate veterans and those who died while serving in the armed forces. ANZAC is actually an acronym, standing for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, who fought in World War I.
So for Australia, a country kind of without its own "cuisine" per se, I wanted to make something that would say "Australia," rather than "food mostly influenced by English cuisine." If I ate meat, I might have just done some "shrimp on the barbie" since that seems to be an easy way to have an "Australian" meal. I also really didn't want to do anything with Vegemite. I only tried it once in high school, and honestly I could see myself kind of liking it at this point in my life, but I really didn't want to buy some just to find out it's still disgusting (I would totally try some if it were offered to me, though.)
Instead, I decided to make Anzac biscuits, which were sent to soldiers during World War I because the ingredients lent themselves well to being stored and shipped. The cookies are made from oats, flour, sugar, coconut, baking soda, butter, and golden syrup. I didn't feel like ordering a whole tin of golden syrup from Amazon (it can be hard to find in American grocery stores) so I decided to use molasses instead. I think that caused by cookies to come out a little darker than normal, but it did give them a great flavor. What's unusual about the recipe is that you melt the butter and syrup together, then mix baking soda and boiling water together and add that to the butter-syrup mixture, which makes it bubble and foam up almost like you're making honeycomb candy.
Apparently some Aussies and Kiwis like crunchy Anzac biscuits, while others like chewy. I think mine came out a good combination of both, with chewy centers and crunchy edges.
Recipes Used: Anzac Biscuits
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