Baking Anzac biscuits

 

 Today being Anzac Day, I baked some Anzac biscuits. This recipe is from my mother-in-law.

Anzac Biscuit recipe

1 cup each of rolled oats, shredded coconut, sugar, and plain flour.

125g of butter

1 tablespoon of golden syrup

1 teaspoon of bi-carb soda

2-3 tablespoons of water

Melt the butter, golden syrup, bi-carb soda and 1 tablespoon of water on the stove. Put the other ingredients, excluding the water, in a large bowl. Mix butter mixture with the dry ingredients, and add the rest of the water. Add more if required to get it to stick together.  Take about a tablespoon amount of the mixture, and press into a ball, place on a greased tray, and flatten into a biscuit shape.  My mother in law uses the back of a spoon to do this, I find it easier to just use my fingers. Bake in a 180 degree oven for 15 minutes. Once out of the oven, let them sit on the tray for only a minute, then lay them onto baking paper on a cooling rack. Now if you're the sort who like your Anzacs chewy, then bake for less time. 

I'm a fan of chewy Anzacs - but ended up baking them hard.  What sort are are? Do you like them chewy or soft?

Best birthday ever....

Last week, my daughter celebrated her fifth birthday, along with 9 other girls and 1 boy from her class. She described it as the BEST birthday ever....which made me feel pretty proud. I did everything possible to make it the best (like staying up till 1am the night before so the cake was just right!). By the end of the day the adrenalin stopped pumping and I crashed with exhaustion.

 A kiddie birthday party was a wonderful excuse for me to finally do some of those crafty projects I've been dieing to do....with bunting being at the TOP of the list.

So, my crafting began with some bunting. I got my inspiration for the bunting from this tutorial. The best tip in the tutorial was to use fabric sash (the tutorial calls it twill?) to string the bunting flags together. It made it much easier and neater. 

The birthday cake came from the Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book - which was first published in 1980 and recently re-released.

When my daughter and I flipped through the pages together she chose a Dolly Vardin cake. I was pretty excited by this choice as one must bake a Dolly Vardin cake once in your life...surely. We had a lovely day trip to Melbourne to a specialist cake decorating shop. They had cake stuff piled up wall to wall.  It was absolute heaven to be there.

While it may look like a complex cake to make, it was very, very easy. I used a packet cake mix, some lovely Vienna cream icing (pink of course) and some edible glitter. And the doll is dressed in Barbie's air steward jacket - giving her a bit of a glamorous appeal.

The party was great fun...an easter egg hunt, pony rides, a craft activity of making Easter bunny ears, face painting (by an auntie), as well as the usual kiddie games of pass the parcel and sit-down-Sunday.  My husband joked that all we needed was a clown and it would have rivalled a small country fair! Oh well. In my family we do these crazy, over the top kiddie birthday parties once every three or four years, so I won't need to do another for a while yet.

The food included fairy bread, cocktail franks with sauce, little cupcakes and sandwiches.