Biscuits, gates, Siamese cat and Happy Half Birthday to me

I am in the mud. I was luxuriating in bed with hot water bottle, book, cup of tea and cat (as you do) when, reaching over to my bedside table to grab the cup for a sip, the tea managed to jump out of the cup right onto Misty, our little Siamese cat. Well, she was not impressed one bit. Fancy, wet fur! Luckily I had been distracted by the book so the tea was well cooling by now but even so. I rubbed her vigorously which, thankfully, she thought a bit of a game but I was really still on the outer. Eventually she forgave me. Round about tea time!@ With a special warm smooch in the middle of the night when she wriggled into my arms under the doona.

Regular readers of this drivel may recall that as the last missive went out I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the men to put in our colourbond gate. They came, they erected and left. Now, whenever the gate is closed, we refer to the old stomping ground as Fortress Alexander Fax. The only reason we decided to get the gate in the first place was so that Misty could range free in the bank yard, safe from marauding toms and feral cars. Sadly, despite the men’s best efforts, the gate could not go low enough so now, a determined cat could squash herself through the gap if so inclined. Fortunately, she has not had that idea yet but just in case, when the gates are closed, I stop the gap with assorted bits of plank and bricks. Don’t bother making helpful suggestions re rubber or such as we will never get around to it. It has taken us 15 years to organise a gate! Despite the gate’s shortcomings, it serves the purpose and Misty loves her new found freedom. After a bit of a wander she settles on one of the sun chairs and nods off in the quietly warm sunshine that August sometimes surprises us with here in Canberra. Naturally, being an overly cautious ‘mother’ I am forever popping out to check on her, but it is a great relief to know that if I am caught on the phone or in an imaginative fugue (read day dream) she will be safe.

Imaginative fugue or mental fug. Whatever you will, I am not quite on the planet at the moment. Apart from the exciting paths down which my latest research is taking me, I am embarking on the sort of project I hate: getting the tax papers together. I have enough difficulty concentrating on the here and now, and with RAL deadlines and research (and latterly publishing deadlines) I am usually cruising around in the future. Think how difficult it is trying to head back to a financial year that is not the current one? I thought I was doing well and started demanding papers from David about something or other and he declared he did not have them. Arguments abounded as I was sure I did not have them, and then I looked closely at the dates. I recall putting in a bit of effort over the Christmas break when David was in Laos and thought I was well ahead of myself. The great effort was limited to copying the papers from the previous year with a little note (not seen by me as it was on the last page) that I had to overwrite the template with current figures. So, humblest apologies to David, a quick look at the calendar to reorientate myself and I am now on track. Well, sort of, until I vague-off again!

You may recall that in the last blurt I mentioned that a plateful of Anzac bikkies was one of our fave afternoon snacks. One of our Canadian friends asked us what an Anzac biscuit was. Well, for those of you who have missed out on this ever popular Aussie treat, here is the good oil.....

According to the Australian War Memorial the army biscuit, also known as an ANZAC wafer or ANZAC tile, is essentially a long shelf-life, hard tack biscuit, eaten as a substitute for bread. Unlike bread, though, the biscuits are very, very hard. Some soldiers preferred to grind them up and eat as porridge. The popular ANZAC biscuit is a traditional, eggless sweet biscuit. Ingredients include rolled oats, sugar, plain flour, coconut, butter, golden syrup or treacle, bi-carbonate of soda and boiling water.

According to http://www.anzacday.org.au/miscellaneous/bikkies.html during World War 1, the wives, mothers and girlfriends of the Australian soldiers were concerned for the nutritional value of the food being supplied to their men. Here was a problem. Any food they sent to the fighting men had to be carried in the ships of the Merchant Navy. Most of these were lucky to maintain a speed of ten knots (18.5 kilometers per hour). Most had no refrigerated facilities, so any food sent had to be able to remain edible after periods in excess of two months. A body of women came up with the answer - a biscuit with all the nutritional value possible. The basis was a Scottish recipe using rolled oats. These oats were used extensively in Scotland, especially for a heavy porridge that helped counteract the extremely cold climate.

The ingredients they used were: rolled oats, sugar, plain flour, coconut, butter, golden syrup or treacle, bi-carbonate of soda and boiling water. All these items did not readily spoil. At first the biscuits were called Soldiers Biscuits, but after the landing on Gallipoli, they were renamed ANZAC Biscuits.

A point of interest is the lack of eggs to bind the ANZAC biscuit mixture together. Because of the war, many of the poultry farmers had joined the services, thus, eggs were scarce. The binding agent for the biscuits was golden syrup or treacle. Eggs that were sent long distances were coated with a product called ke peg (like Vaseline) then packed in air tight containers filled with sand to cushion the eggs and keep out the air. (My mum still used Ke peg, tho’ we called it Keep Egg, when I was a child in the 70s when she raised chooks and sold the eggs to supplement the housekeeping.)

As the war drew on, many groups like the CWA (Country Women’s Association), church groups, schools and other women’s organisations devoted a great deal of time to the making of ANZAC biscuits. To ensure that the biscuits remained crisp, they were packed in used tins, such as Billy Tea tins. You can see some of these tins appearing in your supermarket as exact replicas of the ones of earlier years. Look around. The tins were airtight, thus no moisture in the air was able to soak into the biscuits and make them soft. Most people would agree there is nothing worse than a soft biscuit.

During World War 2, with refrigeration in so many Merchant Navy Ships, the biscuits were not made to any great extent. It was now possible to send a greater variety of food, like fruit cake.
ANZAC biscuits are still made today. They can also be purchased from supermarkets and specialty biscuit shops. Around ANZAC Day, these biscuits are also often used by veteran’s organisations to raise funds for the care and welfare of aged war veterans.
Not a bad history. And the taste is yummy but watch your teeth. Depending on how long you cook them they can be nice and soft or hard as a rock.

Here is a recipe from the AWM site that comes from a Gallipoli veteran:

Popular ANZAC biscuit recipe
The popular ANZAC biscuit is a traditional, eggless sweet biscuit. The following is a original recipe provided by Bob Lawson, an ANZAC present at the Gallipoli landing.
Ingredients
1 cup each of plain flour, sugar, rolled oats, and coconut
4 oz butter
1 tbls treacle (golden syrup)
2 tbls boiling water
1 tsp bicarbonate soda (add a little more water if mixture is too dry)
Method
1. Grease biscuit tray and pre-heat oven to 180C.
2. Combine dry ingredients.
3. Melt together butter and golden syrup. Combine water and bicarbonate soda, and add to butter mixture.
4. Mix butter mixture and dry ingredients.
5. Drop teaspoons of mixture onto tray, allowing room for spreading.
6. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool on tray for a few minutes before transferring to cooling racks.

My recipe comes from the Australian Women's Weekly, my cooking guru:

INGREDIENTS

1 cup (90g) traditional rolled oats
1 cup (150g) plain flour
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
1/2 cup (40g) desiccated coconut
125g butter, chopped
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon boiling water

(Re golden syrup: For those who can’t get a hold of golden syrup, according to the Women’s Weekly, AWM, pure maple syrup or honey can be substituted. Given golden syrup is a much heavier flavour than honey I reckon molasses or treacle might be good substitutes.)

METHOD
Preheat the oven to slow (150C/130C fan-forced). 300 F

Combine the oats, sifted flour, sugar and coconut in a large bowl. Combine the butter and golden syrup in a pan, stir over a low heat until the butter is melted.

Combine the soda and water, add to the butter mixture; stir into the dry ingredients while the mixture is warm.

Roll 1 heaped teaspoon of mixture into a ball; repeat with remaining mixture, placing the balls about 4cm apart on greased oven trays. Flatten balls slightly and bake in a slow oven for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Loosen the biscuits on the tray while warm; cool on trays.

Suitable to freeze. IF they last that long. Which they won’t.

The things you can get away with without even trying! The other day just happened to be 6 months from one birthday, 6 months from another. Without really thinking, I announced it was my Half Birthday. Most people would have let that one go but Dear David, kind soul that he issue, counter-announced that we would have to buy a Half Birthday Present. I was not going to refuse! So out we toddled to the DVD shop which was having a buy 2 get one free con and stocked up! Then we headed out to the cupcake palace for a Half Birthday Cake. And then we went home and warmed up the DVD player for an evening of Half Birthday DVDs (early series of Spooks for those who are interested). Perhaps the government should have cottoned on to Half Birthday’s when they were trying to convince us all to spend money and get the economy moving again!