Anzac Biscuits

These are wonderful cookies, extremely crispy on the first day; they become softer with time; both ways they taste absolutely delicious!!! The name of the cookies Anzac stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. Their origin is not clear, however, it is said that these long-keeping cookies were baked by Australian/New Zealand women during the WW I for the soldiers fighting overseas.

I made the cookies for Taste & Create food blog event hosted by Nicole from For the Love Of Food blog. The rules of the event are simple- Nicole pairs you with another food blogger and then you have to cook something using a recipe from your partner's blog. This month I’ve been paired with Allen from Eating Out Loud blog. Allen has lots of wonderful recipes on his blog from which I’ve chosen Anzac biscuits. I’d come across the recipe for these cookies on a few other food blogs before and really wanted to try them, and since there’s Anzac Day in Australian and New Zealand on 25^th April, it was a perfect timing.

I baked the cookies twice. First time I followed the recipe from Allen's blog almost exactly (the only change I made was replacing golden syrup with maple syrup as the first one is quite hard to find in Poland). Even though the cookies came out tasty, they had some soda aftertaste that I didn’t like. So, I baked the cookies once again adapting the recipe slightly. I reduced the amount of baking soda in the recipe, I used cane sugar in place of white sugar and added a little bit of sea salt. The cookies came out perfect, very crispy at the edges and a little chewy inside without the soda aftertaste. The addition of sea salt makes these cookies very similar to my favorite Polish oat cookies Złotoksłose sold in grocery stores here. Delicious!!!

Here’s my adapted version of the recipe, Allen's recipe can be found on his blog here. I used Demerara sugar in this recipe, but regular sugar or brown sugar will work well too. If like meyou have trouble finding golden syrup, maple syrup or honey will make a nice substitution. Enjoy!!!

Anzac Biscuits

makes about 36 cookies

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup desiccated coconut
3/4 cup flour
1 cup cane sugar
8 tbsp (115 g) unsalted butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 tbsp boiling water
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1. Preheat the oven to 160 C (320 F). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, oats, coconut, and sea salt.

3. Combine the baking soda and boiling water in a small bowl to dissolve.

4. In a small pan over low heat combine the butter and golden (or maple) syrup or honey.

5. Remove from the heat and stir in baking soda and water mixture.

6. Pour into the bowl containing the dry ingredients and stir.

7. Roll into small bowls, place on parchment generously space apart.

8. Press down with the back of a spoon to flatten.

9. Bake for 8-12 minutes or until the cookies are deep golden brown on top.

Print the recipe

Recipe in Polish:
Ciasteczka Anzac

Nutella Madeleines

The recipe for these wonderful madeleines comes from a French food blog Tart'in & Chocolate. The cookies are incredibly tender and fluffy with a wonderful nutty flavor. The inclusion of Nutella to each of the cookies provides wonderful melting sensation in your mouth. They're certainly the best sponge cookies I've ever had.

Nutella Madeleines

Makes 1 pan

3 eggs
40 g caster sugar
50 g flour
40 g unsalted butter
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp Nutella + a drop of Nutella for each madeleine

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then off the heat, stir in Nutella and caster sugar.
2. Using an electric mixer beat the eggs until pale and thick.
3. Sift the flour and baking powder over the eggs, and gently fold in.
4. Combine with the cooled butter, sugar and Nutella mixture.
5. Leave to rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
6. Preheat the oven to 370 F (190 C)
7. Grease madeleine molds. Fill the molds with the cake mixture.
   
8. With a tip of a knife place a drop of Nutella on each madeleine cookie.
9. Bake for 10-15 min.
10. Remove the madeleines from the molds and let cool on a rack.

Przepis po polsku:
Magdalenki z Nutellą

Coconut Macaroons

My husband is coming to Poland tomorrow and since I haven’t seen him for 4 months, I wanted to bake something special for him. I asked what he would like and he chose coconut macaroons. I usually make macaroons with a recipe similar to the one Pille posted on her blog recently, but I wanted to try something a little bit different this time. I’ve found this fabulously easy and quick recipe on one of my favorite Polish food blogs, Moje wypieki, but it originally comes from a book Taste of America. I didn’t make any significant changes to the recipe, except that I used vanilla sugar instead of vanilla extract. I also made more macaroons (about 40) than in the original recipe. The macaroons came out golden and incredibly delicious!!! Here's the recipe:

Coconut Macaroons

makes about 40 macaroons

60 g (1/2 cup) flour
pinch of salt
340 g (4 1/2 cup ) unsweetened shredded coconut
260 ml (a little more than 1 cup) sweetened condensed milk
15 g vanilla sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180 °C (350 F )
2. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add vanilla sugar. Stir in the dried coconut.
3. Pour in the sweetened condensed milk; stir until all the ingredients are well combined.
4. Using your hands, shape little balls of mixture and set onto greased cookie sheets.
5. Bake for 12-14 minutes, or until macaroons are golden brown (do not over bake).
6. Immediately remove from cookie sheets.

Przepis po polsku:
Kokosanki

Maple Leaf Butter Cookies

I had to abandon my blog for a few weeks as I was studying for the final exam at my university. Still, I was cooking and I managed to take a few pictures, so I have some catch up blogging to do. First, I want to tell you about the Maple Butter Cookies I made almost 3 weeks ago. I’m not really a cookie person, but I really wanted to try the maple leaf cutter which I had brought from Canada last summer. Besides, baking cookies is sooo much fun - it always makes me feel like a little kid again!!!

For the maple shaped cookies, I wanted to use a recipe with maple syrup. I searched the Internet for recipes of that sort and found one on Epicurious site. I’ve made a few changes to the recipe - I used brown sugar instead of the regular one, I added some baking powder, reduced the amount of salt and used two, instead of one egg yolk. I also rolled the dough thinner than the recipe says.

Despite that the cookies didn’t taste maple much (the maple flavor was very subtle), they were really tasty – buttery, amazingly crispy and perfect with a cup of tea. My family loved them so much that all the cookies disappeared within two days.


Maple Leaf Butter Cookies

225 g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup maple syrup
2 egg yolks
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour

Cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy and beat in maple syrup and egg yolks until combined well. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt over mixture and fold in thoroughly. Chill dough, wrapped in plastic wrap for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F)

Roll out the dough, then cut out cookies with maple-leaf cookie cutter. Arrange cookies on buttered baking sheets. Bake for about 12 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool.

Przepis po polsku:
Ciasteczka maślane w kształcie klonowych liści