Ani Talwar introduces you to one of her favourite desserts that’s easy for even non-bakers to whip up, made with things you can keep in the back of your cupboard!
Image Credits: Ani Talwar
If you’re anything like me, you love a good bit of dessert at the end of a meal (or before you know if you’re hungry!) at university. If you’re anything like me, you also can’t bake all that well. As a sporadic baker, my attempts at Bake Off level desserts involve a lot of mess, and I’m not a fan of buying special ingredients just to use once in a meal and never again, both because of the waste and my budget.
However there is one recipe I’ve been making for years now that involves ingredients you can buy in bulk and keep for ages. In fact you might already have the ingredients in the back of your cupboard anyway. It’s also easy enough for someone like me (who once had to clean cake batter off the walls) to make without flooding the kitchen in flour (which yes, has also actually happened). Let me introduce you to ANZAC Biscuits.
I’ve had this recipe slipped into the back of my folder for over a decade now, so I’ve also listed the BBC Good Food recipe for you to refer to as the ‘original’, but there are some changes I make. The first amazing thing about this recipe is the ingredients: porridge oats, desiccated coconut, plain flour, sugar, syrup, butter and bicarbonate of soda… that’s it!
Image Credits: Ani Talwar.
In my case, nearly every one of these things will already be in my uni cupboard, with coconut and bicarbonate soda as the only exceptions. These are easy to find in shops and won’t go off in the cupboard.
If you’re looking at the BBC recipe, you can use regular ‘breakfast’ porridge oats instead of any fancy brand. The kind of oats you would buy for making your own porridge in the morning (which is what I use!) is ideal. I also don’t use caster sugar, rest assured that regular sugar will work just as well.
The method is relatively simple:
1. Throw everything in a bowl with 2tbsp water, except the butter and syrup.
2. Melt the butter into the syrup in a separate bowl, and then mix into the flour etc. before moulding it into biscuits… that’s it!
3. If you’re in a rush, or cooking in a kitchen without a decent hob, you can also melt your butter and syrup in the microwave, not in a pan as some recipes will state. All you have to do afterwards is let them bake, but make sure you don’t forget them in the oven!
From experience, my main tip is to let the biscuits cool before you start taking them off the tray as they might crumble if you force them too quickly. I also find a little splash extra of water helps bind the oats together well if they are crumbling too much in your bowl.
Image Credits: Ani Talwar
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