It’s one of those holidays I politely celebrate by sleeping in or watching the festivities on the news. It’s by accident and choice that you live in New Zealand, but its history will never really be a part of you. Mary & Sam had grandfathers who fought in the 1st and 2nd world wars and they have the medals & memorabilia stored somewhere. My Tatay lived through the second-world war and my dad was born in 1942 in Japanese occupied Manila and all I have are stories that I don’t actually remember anymore.

But we all forgot that the stand-in-your-driveway commemoration that was asked of all New Zealanders early this morning and not that tMary & Sam would wake up for it anyway.

I would’ve if the two white people in the house led the way but we all got up at 10am which is the usual for a Saturday.

I decided to make Anzac biscuits though which is strange because I’ve never liked their inherent hardness. They’re similar to gingersnap cookies with that tough outer surface that gives way to a crumbly inside. I got the recipe from an email by Farro Foods which called for:

1 cup rolled oats
¾ cup desiccated coconut
1 cup flour (or use 1 cup almond meal and ½ cup gluten free cornflour)
¾ cup brown sugar
125g butter
2 Tbsp golden syrup
½ tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp boiling water
¾ cup cranberries, chopped dried apricots (soaked in hot water for 5 mins and drained) or chocolate chunks

I didn't have desiccated coconut, golden syrup and cranberries/apricots so I substituted them with crushed pecans, maple syrup and sultanas respectively in the same quantities. The rolled oats I used also had raspberry bits and coconut in it. You can find the full recipe here.

I ended up with nine balls of dough which I later realised was a mistake- the recipe called for balls the size of walnuts and in my mind walnuts were nearly the size of golf-balls 😂. With the cooking time estimated at 15-18 minutes, I thought that the large cookies would burn at the edges before the centres cooked.

But they didn’t- they were a bit crumbly though even after they’ve cooled, and were not at all, like the commercial store-bought Anzac cookies. And I think that 125 grams of butter was a lot and contributed to the cookie being a tad too moist/oily.