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

Lime, White Chocolate and Coconut Muffins

These muffins are really irresistible; they're fragrant and very refreshing with a subtle taste of coconut and intense sweetness of white chocolate cut by the tart flavor of lime. The coconut provides a nice contrasting structure to the melting white chocolate, while the lime flesh gives the muffins some extra moistness. All these together make a delightful combination of textures and flavors. The recipe for these has been adapted from Grab Your Fork food blog. The original version can be found here. Enjoy!!!

Notes to the recipe: Malibu can be substituted with another coconut liquour.

Lime, White Chocolate and Coconut Muffins

150g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
40g caster sugar
100g white chocolate, chopped roughly
1/2 cup desiccated coconut

1 egg
100ml milk
2 tbsp Malibu
50g butter melted and cooled slightly
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 lime

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C (390 F).
2. Grease or line 12 muffin cups.
3. Grate the zest of the lime and set aside.
4. Cut the outer pith from the lime and then carefully slide the knife under one membrane and gently remove a segment of lime flesh. Continue until all lime flesh has been extracted into a bowl for later use.
5. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar, coconut, and white chocolate. Make a well in the centre.
6. In a separate large mixing bowl, mix together the egg, milk, vanilla and Malibu. Stir in lime flesh and rind.
7. Pour the egg mixture and melted butter into the well. Mix quickly just until the ingredients are combined, taking no more than 15 seconds as over-mixing will prevent them rising.
8. Spoon into the muffin pan filling ¾ full.
9. Bake for 20 minutes .

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Recipe In Polish:
Muffinki limonkowo-kokosowe z białą czekoladą

Coconut and Apricot Cake

This is a fabulously easy and quick cake to make; you just put all the ingredients to a bowl, mix them with an electric mixer, stir in the apricots and raisins, and the batter is ready to go to the oven. It all takes only about five minutes. The cake is long to bake, but this is actually a very pleasurable experience as, while in the oven, the cake perfumes the entire house with a wonderful coconut scent. It comes out from the oven extrememly moist, tender and very fragrant. The use of coconut milk adds a depth of coconut flavor which, I suspect, couldn’t be achieved by desiccated coconut alone. The recipe for this delicious cake comes from a Polish food blog (some posts also in English) White Plate written by Liska. The original recipe in Polish can be found on her blog here. Enjoy!!!

Coconut and Apricot Cake

200 g unsalted butter, softened

3 eggs

150 g caster sugar

100 g desiccated coconut

50 g all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

150 ml coconut milk

200 g dried apricots, roughly chopped

100 g raisins

1. Preheat the oven to 300 F (150 C)
2. Grease 20 cm springform pan.
3. Using an electric mixer, mix all the ingredients, except raisins and apricots until smooth.
4. Stir in dried apricots and raisins.
5. Pour into the pan. Bake for 1 ½ hour.
6. Let cool before removing from the pan.

Przepis po Polsku:
Ciasto kokosowo-morelowe

Creamy Carrot and Coconut Milk Soup

This is a truly delicious soup, amazingly thick and creamy with whole range of wonderful aromas and flavors; the recipe for the soup comes from a Polish cookbook Smak życia (Taste of Life) written by a model, Agnieszka Maciąg. The book is a wonderful collection of delicious and healthy recipes from all over the world. There’s Japanese miso soup recipe, as well as Thai salad with crab, herring cooked Swedish way, and recipe for cookies from a Polish magazine, issue 1937. The recipes are accompanied with beautiful pictures of food and places from which the recipes come from. Looking at all those wonderful photographs you can almost smell and taste all the delicious meals as well as feel the atmosphere of all the wonderful places shown in the pictures. Agnieszka talks about food with passion and curiosity. For her cooking is pleasure and trying new dishes an adventure.

“In Brazil women laugh while cooking, so that there’s joy and love in their food. Cooking is a creative process. In the kitchen we become artists of life. We experience the sacred in ordinary things. For me cooking is not chemistry, it’s magic.’’

says Agnieszka, and I fully agree with that ;)

Creamy Carrot and Coconut Soup
(adapted from Smak życia by Agnieszka Maciąg)

serves 2

½ kg carrots, diced

1 tbsp butter

0,5 inch (1-2 cm) fresh ginger root, peeled and grated

375 ml (1 ½ cup) vegetable stock

1 cup (250 ml) canned coconut milk

½ lemon, juice of

salt

¼ tea spoon nutmeg

1 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped

1. Heat the butter in a large heavy bottomed pan, add the carrots and pepper. Sauté for a few minutes stirring occasionally.
2. Add the ginger, a pinch of salt and nutmeg.
3. Pour in warm vegetable stock, cover with a lid and simmer until the carrots are soft. If there's not enough stock to cover the carrots, add some water.
4. Stir in coconut milk, cook for 3 minutes more.
5. Add the lemon juice.
6. In blender or food processor, puree soup until smooth.
7. Sprinkle with coriander leaves.

Przepis po polsku:
Krem z marchewki z mlekiem kokosowym

White Chocolate Bounty

The inspiration for today’s recipe comes again from Dagmar’s food blog. A few days before Christmas, Dagmar posted a wonderful Homemade Bounty recipe that I really wanted to try. I didn’t want my bounties to be the exact copy of the chocolate bars available in shops though. The original Bounty bars are covered either with milk or dark chocolate (this one is harder to obtain in Poland thought). I came up with the idea of using white chocolate instead. Another adjustment I’ve made was adding vanilla extract to the coconut filling. The result was absolutely delicious!!! White chocolate, coconut and vanilla is absolutely divine blend of flavors!!! The coconut filling came out a little softer than the one in the original Bounty bar, but it didn’t influence its wonderful taste.

White Chocolate Bounty
( based on Dagmar's Homemade Bounty recipe)

200 g unsweetened shredded coconut
100 ml heavy cream
70 g icing sugar
70 g unsalted butter
1 tbsp vanilla extract
200 g white chocolate

1. In a big bowl combine coconut and icing sugar.
2. Heat the cream and butter in a small saucepan over low heat ,stirring occasionally, until the butter has melted. Add vanilla extract. Pour the mixture over the coconut and sugar. Stir until all the ingredients are well combined.
3. Using your hands, shape little balls of mixture. The balls will be a little hard to form, try to do it by pressing small amounts of mixture together.
4. Place the balls on a parchment lined baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.
5. Melt the white chocolate in the top of a double boiler over hot, not simmering water or in the microwave. Using a toothpick dip each ball in the warm melted chocolate, place the balls on a parchment lined baking sheet. Place in the fridge for 30-60 min to allow the chocolate harden before serving.

The bounties should be stored in the refrigerator.

Przepis po polsku:
Bounty w białej czekoladzie

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