Wednesday's Chow: ANZAC Biscuits

By Margaret Tanner

In 1915, these biscuits were baked by mothers and sisters and sent in food parcels to troops serving on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey and also to France and Flanders.  The soldiers were members of an expeditionary force, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACS). As my novel, Daring Masquerade, is set against a background of World War 1, I thought readers might be interested in this recipe.

Note from Anna Kathryn:  I love ANZAC biscuits. My Girl Scout troop had Australia one year for a Round the World Day activity and we made these 'cookies' for our snack.  I have since lost the recipe, so I'm glad to have it given to me now! ANZAC biscuits were popular with the troops because they 'traveled' well.  Thanks for sharing with us, Margaret.  By the way, if you have not read Margaret's Monday post on Roses: The flower of love, please do so now.

ANZAC biscuits

Ingredients:

125g (4 oz) butter

1 tablespoon golden syrup

2 tablespoons boiling water

1 ½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking powder)

1 cup rolled oats

¾ cup desiccated coconut

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar. 

Method:

Melt butter and golden syrup over low heat. Add boiling water mixed with bicarbonate of soda.  Pour into mixed dried ingredients and mix well.

Drop teaspoonfuls of mixture on to greased baking trays, leaving room for spreading.

Bake in pre-heated slow oven (150C/300F) for 20 minutes. Cool on trays for a few minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool.

Store in an airtight container.  Makes about 45. 

DARING MASQUERADE

By the time Ross Calvert discovers Harry Martin is in fact Harriet Martin she has fallen in love with him. Realizing she has failed in her final effort to protect her shell-shocked brother, she puts a desperate proposition to Ross. Marry her and she will give him an heir.

Ross accepts.  However, he is tormented by the betrayal of his former fiancée Virginia.  On his honeymoon he meets her again and is still infatuated.  With the army recalling him to the trenches of France, he faces a terrible dilemma. Taste Virginia’s passion before he marches off to war, or keep his marriage vows to Harry.

 

Buy DARING MASQUERADE here.

 To put myself in the same position as my heroine, Harriet (Harry) in Daring Masquerade, who was thrown into jail for a crime she did not commit. I visited an old jail and went into the little stone cell, and although it was a hot day, inside the cell it was bone chillingly cold. I wanted to know what it was like to be incarcerated in such a place, so I could relate to how Harry felt. Pregnant, alone, the fear and the physical discomfort and the absolute hopelessness of her situation made worse by the hatred of her fellow prisoners who thought she was a spy. And if that wasn’t bad enough, her husband was fighting in the trenches of France, and she didn’t know whether he was alive or dead.

Margaret Tanner
Poignant, Passionate Wartime Romance
2011 EPICON FINALIST
2010 BEST HISTORICAL ROMANCE AT READERS FAVORITE
http://www.margarettanner.com