Anzac Biscuits

Anzac biscuits

Today is ANZAC day, so what better way to celebrate the day than to make a batch of Anzac Biscuits. Well, on second thoughts, there are other ways, one of which was apparently enjoyed this morning at the local RSL Club after the dawn service, by drinking liberal amounts of rum in milk for breakfast! Rum for breakfast – I don’t think so!

Anyway, back to the baking. These biscuits enjoy a long history in Australia, and if you are interested to find out more, go here.

150g plain flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
100g rolled oats
95g desiccated coconut
140g caster sugar
150g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 tablespoon golden syrup
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
30ml water

Preheat a fan-forced oven to 175C. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Place first 5 ingredients into a large bowl and mix. Place butter, golden syrup, bicarb soda and water into a saucepan and stir over medium heat just long enough to melt the butter. Pour into dry ingredients and lightly mix in. Place teaspoons of mixture on to trays leaving room for spreading. Bake for approx. 15 minutes until golden brown. Leave on the trays for a few minutes before cooling on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container.

Note that the mixture should be moist enough to form into a mound. If it is too dry to hold together, just add a little water to bring it to the correct consistency. Also I like to use a small ice cream scoop to get the biscuits the same size.

Finally, a word of warning – every recipe that I have ever read for Anzac biscuits says that only traditional rolled oats are to be used. Never use anything that has the word “quick” on the packet. I have no idea why not. Test it at your peril. (If you are visited by the black plague, don’t blame me!)

Baking

Fruit Cake

Today I had the urge to bake a cake and here it is. Basically just a boiled fruitcake but deliciously moist because of the secret ingredient – crushed pineapple. This is a great recipe and I hope you will give it a try.

The only changes I made were to use a square pan (makes for easy cutting) and to lower the temperature on my fan forced oven to 150C. It cooked in 1 hour 20 minutes.

Highly recommend. Enjoy!

Catching Up

Lavender

Frangipani

Chickens

Yes – catch up time! On weeding in particular. It’s taken me a few days to look closely at the garden after being away for over a month. The first reason was because the grass was so high that I couldn’t actually see the garden, and secondly, I just didn’t want to know how much work was in store for me. As you can see, I have some work to do!

The grass is taking over!

More work needed here,,,

I don’t know about you, but when I have catch up on chores like sorting out the filing system, cleaning out the fridge or in this case – weeding, I tend to procrastinate for an inordinate amount of time, only to realise that the job would have been over and done quite quickly had I just got in there and made a start straight away.

So yesterday I bought a magazine featuring some garden ideas. But rather than making me feel like rushing forth armed with my favourite gardening implements, I compared my bit of weed covered earth with the glossy images of perfect tropical paradise, which the owner modestly proclaimed was a bare, wind swept desert only a year ago, and wondered why I haven’t achieved a lot more in the last two years.

One step at a time, I remind myself, so on that note I will venture out and start on the cat’s garden. This was last year’s project of which I was quite proud – after much consultation on the web, a cat’s paradise of only good, safe plants such as herbs, rosemary and lemongrass. As I lovingly tended it, I could just picture the two cats finding shady spots to laze on a summer’s day, nibble on cat grass and roll in the catnip.

DSCN1890

Unfortunately, the reality was that after some time exploring said garden, Samurai discovered, after 6 years of doing nothing more active than chasing the odd garden lizard which always got away, that he could jump the fence and became far more interested in exploring next door’s open, empty patch with hardly a plant in sight! Higher fences proved no challenge, with the result that the cats now have three connecting cat enclosures; so rather than being in the garden they now look down on it.