Lest We Forget – Anzac Day Journal Page and Anzac Biscuits

Hello everyone!

Today is ANZAC day, a day that is celebrated in Australia and New Zealand with a public holiday but it is a day to remember all those Australians and New Zealanders who fought in all the wars so we can have the freedom we have today.  You might be wondering why I am writing about ANZAC day here in Scotland, but I actually spent half my life in Australia celebrating ANZAC day there.  So one thing I always do is make Anzac Biscuits for Anzac Day.  They happen to be my favourite biscuits so I do make them at other times of the year, especially for gifts and just when I want to eat them because they are yummy!  I will put the biscuit recipe at the end of the post.  Today I also made an art journal page inspired by Anzac Day and it is the first piece of art that I have made in my “new” room.  More about the new room later, but I have just spent three days moving furniture and my hands are about to go on strike, along with my feet, and everything in between!  Forgive the wobbly lines, my hand shakes at the best of times but today it was all I could do to hold onto the brushes and pencils lol.  Here we go!

The other day I did some swatching of new Daniel Smith paints and in the process, created two watercolour backgrounds in my journal.  I used the first one in my Day 22 post here, and so I thought I would use the second one today.  Here’s what that page looked like:

I was thinking of drawing some poppies in the pinky orange side of the page so I drew some practice poppies first on another page.

Then I sketched them onto the page, turning it so the pinky side was on the left.  When I was done sketching my three poppies, I painted them with the DS sample paints. Then added shading and details with pencils and pens, and finished with some journalling on the other side.

And here’s the finished page, watercolour poppies with some pencil and Pitt pen shading and some watercolour splatters in red and green.

And now the all important biscuits!

I like to make mine like this so they are really thin and crunchy, so I flatten them out quite a lot when they go in the oven, but you can make them less crunchy and less flat, by not flattening them so much, that way they will be more chewy.  Either way, they are delicious dunked in a cup of tea!

These won’t last long at all lol.  Just writing about them is making me want to go eat one right now!

ANZAC BISCUITS

Why Anzac Biscuits?

We were always told that these biscuits were sent to the troops during the war but there is no real proof of this, though this kind of oatmeal biscuit was often sent but not with this name.
They very popular to make for fundraising events and more likely were make to raise money for the war effort

Ingredients:

1 cup of rolled oats
1 cup of plain flour
1 cup of sugar
3/4 cup of coconut
125g butter (or use vegan margarine like I do)
1 tablespoon of golden syrup
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons of boiling water

Heat the oven to 150C or 300F
You will need some flat cookie trays, and you can either grease them or use baking paper, whatever you prefer. I like to use non-stick baking paper.
Set up your trays before you start so they will be ready to put your biscuits on when you finish mixing, and you will get to eat your biscuits sooner with less waiting!

Method:

Put the oats, flour, coconut and sugar in a big bowl and mix together.
Mix the butter/marg and the golden syrup in a pan until melted. This should be on a low heat, you don’t want to cook it, you just want to melt it.
Meanwhile, mix the bicarbonate and boiling water together, then add to the butter/golden syrup mixture. This will fizz up for a few seconds when the bicarb mixture meets the hot syrup mix.
Add all of it into the bowl of dry ingredients while it is still warm and give it a good mix, so it should be well combined and no dry mixture showing.
Scoop up tablespoons of mixture and put on the baking trays, approximately 4-5 cm apart as they will spread during baking and you don’t want them to stick together. No problem if they do, you can just break them apart, but they won’t look as pretty.
Once you have filled a tray, press down lightly on each one if you want a thicker, more chewy biscuit, or press down a bit more if you want them to be thinner and more crunchy.
Pop them in the oven for approx 15-20 minutes but watch them carefully as they cook quickly and you don’t want to burn them! They should be golden brown when they are ready.
Take them out of the oven and allow them to cool on the trays but loosen them a little bit to make sure they don’t stick.
Depending on the size you make your biscuits, this recipe will make around 25 give or take.
Keep them in an airtight container and you can also freeze them (if there are any left to freeze!)

I hope you try making your own Anzac Biscuits, they are really delicious.  They can be vegan if you use vegan non-dairy spread like I do.  If you buy the right oats, they will be naturally gluten-free.  The golden syrup is important to the taste though you could try maple syrup.  And the coconut is essential so if you don’t like coconut these are not the biscuits for you.  I love coconut so these are my all time favourites!

Let me know what you think in the comments, and as always, thanks for reading!

Challenges

Blog Along with Effy – Day 25

Links to all the days of the April blog along
April 1st – Day 1 – You don’t have to be perfect to be amazing
April 2nd – Day 2 – Cat hammocks and sneak peeks
April 3rd – Day 3 – Favourite Children’s Books
April 4th – Day 4 – Green Crochet Socks Story
April 5th – Day 5 – A Short Family History of Scones
April 6th – Day 6 – Happy Tartan Day
April 7th – Day 7 The Unbearable Lightness of Old Wallpaper
April 8th – Day 8 Off with their heads my Queen
April 9th – Day 9 – Andy Warhol Cat
April 10th – Day 10 – Tiny Book Covers WIP
April 11th – Day 11 – Happy National Pet Day
April 12th – Day 12 – Collage Fodder, Recycling, Stealing from Kittens
April 13th – Day 13 – Company of Liars ATC Book Cover
April 14th – Day 14 – This is What Happens when you Make all the Things
April 15th – Day 15 – A Short History of Blogging, Tips, Tricks, AMA
April 16th – Day 16 – I just want to drink tea, pet cats and read books
April 17th – Day 17 – You can never have too many cats
April 18th – Day 18 – Days 61-70 of #the100DayProject 2021 – Book Quotes on ATCs
April 19th – Day 19 – They Were A Thing of Strange Wild Edged Beauty
April 20th – Day 20 – There is nothing like a dream to create the future
April 21st – Day 21 – You are capable of more…
April 22nd – Day 22 – Earth Day AJ and  Daniel Smith Swatching
April 23rd – Day 23 More Tiny Book ATCs for World Book Day
April 24th – Day 24 – Think Like A Queen
April 25th – Day 25 – today

This month I decided to join in with Effy Wild’s blog along – 30 posts in 30 days and hope I can think if enough things to say. every. day. I’ll do my best to keep up.  The idea is to blog every day (obvs) but also to comment on other people’s blogs to keep the conversation going.  There is a facebook group where you can link your posts and find other people’s to go visit and comment. During April you can find all the Blog Along posts linked on my home page for convenience. If you leave a comment, I’ll be sure to return the favour!

homemade art journal, dot card paint samples, black pen, polychromos, PITT pens | biscuit recipe,

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