Baking disasters and Anzac biscuits

Some days, things just go right in the kitchen. They certainly have for me this last week while I’ve been blogging. New recipes worked first time and my first attempt at pastry turned out pretty good. But sometimes, like today, things just don’t work. I like to think that even the best of chefs have baking disasters occasionally. Not that a failed recipe in the kitchen really is a disaster in the scheme of things. But this afternoon baking, things just didn’t seem to want to go my way.

Last week just before heading out for my first cake decorating class, I was skimming through one of my books and came across a recipe for ginger and lime kisses (two little ginger cookies with a lime butter-cream filling). I thought they looked and sounded nice so decided that they would be my next weekend baking project. They didn’t quite work out. While I followed the recipe, they spread too much, didn’t rise and just didn’t look like they should have. I think I may know what went wrong, but I’ll get to that in a minute. They still tasted great, so I have frozen them and might make ice-cream sandwiches with them or a twist on cookies and cream ice-cream another day.

Determined to still have something baked to post, and share, I decided to make some Anzac biscuits. 

I’ve made these before so I was sure they at least would turn out fine. The biscuits involve melting butter with golden syrup and bicarb soda, then adding this to the dry ingredients. As I’m melting the butter, syrup and soda, I notice the mixture looks a bit split. Hmm, the other cookie mix also looked split for a long time. I’m not sure, but I think maybe the butter was the issue. Or maybe it was just me and I was having a bad day in the kitchen. In the end I still made the biscuits, and although they also spread more than usual, they still taste the same. I’ll be getting some different butter before my next baking attempt though, just in case!

Anzac biscuits

Ingredients

• 125g unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 1 teaspoon bicarb soda
• 1 ½ cups rolled oats
• 1 cup self raising flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• Pinch salt
• 1 egg (optional – I have made before without the egg, just add another 25g or so more butter)
• You could add nuts as well if you want although didn’t. The recipe that I adapted included ½ cup of chopped nuts.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160-170C fan-forced. Line 2 – 3 baking trays.
2. Melt butter, golden syrup and bicarb in a small saucepan. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and mix. Pour in melted butter mix and stir until combined as much as you can.
3. Add egg, mix well. I find that at this stage I really need to use my hands to bring it together. Once combined, roll about a heaped tablespoons worth into balls and place on tray. Press down slightly. Allow room for them to spread.
4. Bake for 10 – 15 minutes. I like mine chewy so I only bake them for 10 minutes.
5. Allow to cool before serving or storing in an airtight container.

Recipe adapted from Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen’s Classic Country Collection (1996), p 100.