ANZAC Magic

I’ve learned a valuable lesson this morning. Never mess with the knowledge, experience and cooking skills of our pioneering womenfolk.

I say this because today I decided to cook some ANZAC biscuits. I checked the pantry to make sure I had all the ingredients: Butter — check (well, the cholesterol-fighting spread that we artery-challenged middle-agers use). Flour, coconut, oats — check. Golden syrup — check. Sugar — check. Bicarb soda — check. Great! All systems go.

But as I am wont to do (even though experience proves I should really know better) I decided to give the old ANZACs a new twist. Perhaps it was the Scotsman’s daughter in me who was reluctant to use the expensive, sterol-enhanced spread, or maybe it really was a genuine belief that I should not be consuming so much unhealthy fat in the first place, that made me decide to replace some of the ‘butter’ with olive oil. After all, I concluded, it was still wet stuff, so it really shouldn’t make much difference, should it?

I heated the wet ingredients and stirred them into the dry ingredients but instead of glugging up into a sticky ball as required, the ingredients obstinately refused to come together. Thinking it was just due to the strange butter and olive oil mix I conceded that, yes, they will be a bit dry, but we will get over it.

Somehow I managed to squeeze the mixture into kind-off lumps and popped them into the oven, but as I cleaned up the kitchen I made a mental note to never again mess with those early Australian chicks. After all, they’d probably tried and tested many versions of ANZAC biscuits before finally settling on something that actually worked. Who was I to question their wisdom? I, who has had many tragic cookery moments and whose love of cooking is rivalled only by her love of having dental surgery without anaesthesia.

But as I opened the pantry door to replace something, I saw a disconcerting sight. There, sitting on the shelf in front of my nose, was the Golden Syrup! Only THE most important ingredient of the ANZAC biscuit!

Unopened.

No wonder there’d been no glugging! I quickly dashed to the oven and removed the lumps which had already begun to harden, tossed them unceremoniously back into a mixing bowl and smashed them with a wooden spoon. I heated the golden syrup and glooped it into the crumbling mess and WHAMMO: straight away there was ‘glugging’ and I knew I had managed to resurrect the ailing ANZACs. It was truly a moment of culinary magic!

Back into the oven and shortly afterwards out they came, all golden and yummy-looking. In fact, I’d almost go as far as saying they may be the best batch I’ve ever produced. (And the Scotsman’s daughter was quite relieved that she hadn’t just wasted $8 worth of sterols too!)

Yes, those ANZAC chicks may not have had olive oil and sterol-enhanced spreads to choose from in those days so, indeed, the ANZAC biscuit may truly be an artery-hardener-to-the-max.

But the real problem with ANZAC biscuits is not that they contain so much fat and sugar. It’s that people like me, whose cholesterol levels correspond directly with their lack of willpower, are unable to stop eating them!

What we really need is a recipe for “Anti-ANZAC-Scoffing”.

Now THAT, I definitely wouldn’t mess with! Promise.