crumble in pink dish sitting on green tea towel

ANZAC Biscuit Inspired Fruit Crumble

Kath April 21, 2022

This recipe idea came to me not long after I woke up today, and since I actually remembered the idea after I had properly woken up and got ready for the day, I just had to make it.

This crumble is based on the Weeknight Strawberry and Apple Crumble from my cookbook, Everyday Bakes. It’s a pretty flexible recipe and makes enough to generously feed four people.

I always like using apples as the base of my crumble, very finely sliced. You can play around with what other fruit you would like to add. I find a punnet of strawberries goes well, and this time I also added in some already cooked rhubarb I had. You could add berries, pears, stone fruit, or poached quince if you have some already. The quantities for the fruit don’t need to be exact, just make sure you don’t overfill your baking dish or you may end up with any fruit juices overflowing from the dish during baking.

The crumble topping is inspired by ANZAC Biscuits, using oats, brown sugar, coconut and golden syrup, which I’m sure many of us are thinking about making this weekend. I hope this crumble will be a nice thing to make and enjoy this long weekend, along with a batch or two of ANZAC Biscuits.

ANZAC Biscuit Inspired Fruit Crumble

Ingredients:

40g unsalted butter, softened

50g rolled oats (not instant oats)

50g plain flour

50g brown sugar

20g shredded coconut

1 tsp golden syrup

x2 small apples (I prefer Pink Lady apples)

250g strawberries

Cooked rhubarb*, optional

2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

In a medium bowl, mix together the butter, oats, flour, sugar and coconut until everything is well combined. You can use your fingers to rub everything together. Once well combined, add in the golden syrup and mix with a spoon until it is fairly well incorporated.

Finely slice the apples (no need to peel them!) and hull and quarter the strawberries. Place the fruit into a 1.25L/5 cup capacity baking dish - one that is wider and shallower instead of narrow and deep will work better for this recipe.

If you have any cooked or stewed rhubarb you can mix some of that in now as well, just enough so your baking dish is not overly full and you still have ample room for the crumble topping without everything spilling over the sides. You could also add in any other berries (approx. 125g), one stone fruit that is finely sliced, a finely sliced pear or an additional apple if you wish.

Toss the vanilla into the fruit and press the fruit mixture down a little so the crumble topping has a relatively even surface to sit on. Then top with the crumble topping so it evenly covers the surface.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown.

Serve warm with ice cream or cream.

If there are any leftovers, allow the crumble to cool down then cover and keep in the the fridge.

Serves four, generously.

* I used some pot roasted rhubarb I had made from Sophie Hansen and Annie Herron’s new book Around the Kitchen Table. I used the cooked cut up stalks (about 15 individual pieces of varying sizes), and allowed most of the cooking juice to drip off before adding to the crumble.

Giant ANZAC Biscuit

Kath April 21, 2021

The idea for this Giant ANZAC Biscuit started when I was watching Nadiya Hussain’s series ‘Time to Eat’ on Netflix a couple of months ago.

Nadiya made a massive cookie in a pan on the stove, and it got me thinking about what other biscuit recipes could be cooked this way. I soon thought of the humble ANZAC biscuit as the butter already needs to be melted on the stove, and I couldn’t think of anything better than a giant ANZAC biscuit.

I had some level of trepidation making this recipe. It reminded me a lot of those times in the past where I tried to make frittata on the stove and never understood how anyone got it to actually cook through without burning the bottom. My final attempt ended up with me putting the frustrating frittata in the oven, only to accidentally try pick it up out of the oven with the hand that didn’t have an oven glove on it.

Needless to say I then sat at the sink with my burnt hand running under cold water (for a long time), picking at bits of the frittata and deciding that I would never attempt this again. I then developed a frittata recipe that only goes in the oven and my frittatas are no longer frustrating.

I had a feeling that biscuits should really just go in the oven, but Nadiya made it look so easy. My attempts however, were not so easy, and quite frankly a waste of ingredients.

I initially tried to cook it just on the stove, and once I could smell burning sugar I realised I was back in the land of the frustrating frittata. That attempt went in the bin, once it had cooled down and I had used both bicarb soda and lemon juice to clean the pan. And had the exhaust fan on long enough to get rid of the burnt sugar smell.

I decided one last attempt was in order, and started the biscuit on the stove then put it into the oven. What looked like a perfectly cooked giant biscuit was actually very raw inside.

I decided now was as good a time as any to give up on my giant stove top ANZAC idea, particularly as I had not wasted so many baking ingredients in a long time.

Luckily when I posted on my Instagram stories about my baking fail, someone kindly messaged me to say they often make giant ANZAC biscuits, and bake them in a tart tin. This excellent idea led me to think that a cake tin could also do the job, and just like a frittata, ANZAC biscuits, regular sized or giant, should be cooked in the oven (obviously…).

So here is my third and final attempt at a Giant ANZAC Biscuit, baked in a springform cake tin. And cooked in the oven, as all biscuits/cookies should be. Nadiya’s perfect stovetop cookie will probably always allude me like a frittata cooked perfectly on the stove, but nevertheless I can now eat both frittata and giant biscuits without the fear of excessive burns (to the food and myself), so I’d call that a win.

Giant ANZAC Biscuit

Ingredients:

80g rolled oats (not instant oats)

150g plain flour

215g caster sugar

65g coconut

1 tbsp golden syrup

110 g unsalted butter

1 tsp bi-carb soda

2 tbsp warm water

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius and grease and line a 23-24cm springform cake tin.

Mix the oats, flour, sugar and coconut in a large bowl. Melt the golden syrup and butter on a medium-low heat, then mix the bi-carb soda and warm water together and add to the butter. The butter mixture should froth a little.

Take the butter mixture off the heat and add to the dry ingredients and mix together.

Tip the mixture into the prepared cake tin and smooth out so it reaches the edges and sits evenly.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top is nicely golden.

Undo the springform tin, leaving the biscuit to cool on the cake tin base, on top of a wire rack.

Once completely cooled, remove the biscuit from the cake tin base and cut into pieces to eat.

Store in an airtight container.

ANZAC Biscuits Revisited

Kath April 24, 2015

I have posted a fairly similar version of this recipe before. It is one of my favourite recipes from my Grandma’s collection, and often I adapt it to suit what types of ingredients we have or to try some new ingredient I have found.

More recently, I wanted to play with the ingredients to alter to final texture of the biscuit. The type of sugar you use will determine whether these ANZAC biscuits are crisp and crunchy or softer and chewier. I like to try gain some kind of middle ground between these two opposites, by using a combination of caster sugar and raw sugar. If you like a more chewy biscuit use a combination of caster and brown sugar.

I also found coconut chips in a deli a while back, and they are great in this recipe. The bigger chunks of coconut give the biscuits a litter more substance and highlight the coconut amongst all the other ingredients just that much more. Any coconut will do, but it’s nice to try something different every once in a while!

I am posting this recipe again, not just because of my adventures in experimenting with it. It is of course ANZAC Day tomorrow, and a very significant one at that. I’ve said before that the main way I tend to mark these kind of significant holidays or events is with food. Not to lessen the significance of the occasion, but to mark it in my own way. I’m not one, especially on this occasion, for immersing myself in it all too much. Being a modern history major and the relative of some who have served and are currently serving, often makes the connection of the day a little too overwhelming for me.