Anzac caramel ripple cake

So the Anzac is a simple biscuit. Oats, coconut, flour, sugar etc etc. It's to be enjoyed with a cup of tea or an instant coffee. It's not fancy or ostentatious. Until I went and did this.

Have you ever enjoyed a chocolate ripple cake? Chocolate ripple biscuits sandwiched together with cream, then slathered with even more cream? That always seemed so indulgent to me, but then I had a brainwave. I could out-indulge the over-indulgent. Mega indulgent, so to speak.

This idea must be credited to a lovely lady I worked with a few jobs ago. Pat was such a gem: reliable, great bawdy sense of humour and totally calm in very stressful situations (she may have been my exact opposite, except for the bawdy part). She was even more beloved when she brought a gingernut caramel ripple cake to work. It was out of this world: soft, a little spicey and so, so creamy.

Anzac biscuits

How could I not? It's Anzac Day here in Australia, the public holiday to commemorate the landing of the troops in Gallipoli. I honestly was going to have a blog break today (as you'll find I normally do on public holidays and weekends). I had my biscuit bonanza recently, but failed to include Anzacs in that rotation. It was only fair I pulled up my socks today and whipped up a batch of Australia's national biscuit.

These biscuits find their origins in World War I. Anzac (or Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, the group of soldiers that landed in Gallipoli) were, it's safe to say, pretty far from the creature comforts of home while fighting in Turkey during the war. The women knew little food sent over would remain edible after around two months in a ship at sea. So rather than using eggs or milk, they bound the biscuits with golden syrup. Oats and coconut were fairly nutritious and flour and sugar would not spoil.

Pie-scrap cookies

I despise seeing perfectly good food tossed in the bin because I've let it go to waste. This happens more often than I'd care to admit. Tuesday is bin night and Matty stands at the fridge, ruthlessly chucking brown herbs, smelly meat and furry cheese. Funnily enough, it coincides with his grumpiest night of the week.

My wastefulness is my biggest shame. Even more than my standing-in-front-of-the-open-fridge-eating-leftovers-by-the-moonlight binges. It's cause by my magpie-like attention span. I get distracted by new shiny foods and can't get the picture out of my head until it's in my belly. This would be fine if I didn't cook enough for a family of seventeen, leaving leftovers for a week.

Cinnamon almond cookies

Every once in a while, you find a new favourite thing. I have a pair of wedges I've almost worn through. My new black suit for work will need elbow patches in a month if I'm not careful. My shiny red bike is just about the best thing to ever happen to me. But a favourite new biscuit? Obsess much, Bennetto? How is it possible to bake that many biscuits you have a favourite? Biscuit Bonanza might give you an idea of how much I'm "into" cookies. Cookie-crazy. Bananas for biscuits.

This recipe is from Professional Baking again. I won't list the recipe cos that'd be cheating. But the theory is you make the dough from a sweet mix of butter, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, almonds and egg yolks, roll it up into a log and freeze it. Cut off as many rounds as you like and bake for about 20 minutes. It'll keep in the freezer for as long as you like. You can be all Martha Stewart-like and whip up some fresh biscuits whenever you have guests. They'll be totally taken with ease you seem to operate in the kitchen. You'll start being invited to all kinds of fancy soirees. The high society will sing your praises. Eventually you'll be admitted to the Order of Australia and you'll be up on the podium thinking about where it all began. You'll think of me. Or Wayne Glassman. He's the guy that actually wrote the recipe.

Vegan hazelnut cookies

A guy in my team at work celebrated his seventh year with the organisation recently. When I remember to cook, I normally bake a little treat to acknowledge their hard work. This occasion represented a new challenge. When I first started at my new job, he joked that he was the 'V' word. Being the most inappropriate supervisor around, I automatically asked if he was a virgin. No Emma, not a virgin, but a vegan. Phew.

Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

These. These are classics. I know I'll be preaching to the choir when I tell you these are some of the best biscuits going 'round. And if you haven't yet discovered the joy that is peanut butter and chocolate chips combined, you're welcome/I'm sorry.

Matt and I were in Ballarat on the weekend with Mum. He was meeting the Burke side of the family for the first time. We managed to go a whole meal without an someone poking someone else in the boob (a genetic trait for all Mum's side of the family, one I seem to have inherited in spades). We enjoyed Nanna's ginger fluff sponge (by way of Aunty Margaret), cheese puffs, sandwiches, Mum's sausage rolls and a date loaf that wouldn't quit. Amazing.

The three Cs: cherry, coconut, chocolate

Do you remember when the icecream-version of chocolate bars came out? In Australia, two of the most celebrated chocolate bars are the Crunchie and the Cherry Ripe bar. I distinctly remember the day Sarah and I stumbled upon the Icecream Crunchie in the local milk bar. She declared it the best icecream ever made. To this day, it ranks up there with Light and Tangy chips as a game-changing snack food (there's such a thing in the Bennetto household. We also have a deal-breaking spag bol, if you must know.)

The Cherry Ripe icecream was not met with such adulation. It was good - don't get me wrong. But the key to a good icecream crossover is to be better than the original. That's a big ask with the Cherry Ripe. This chocolate is hard to top. Even though the chocolate was dark (a big no-no to our teenaged tastes), the cherry and the coconut was such a cracker combination we couldn't pass it up.

The checker cookie

You'll need some miniscule pieces to play chinese checkers on these babies, but at the very least you'll have an entertaining cookie to gaze upon. This, like the facecake, is a treat you'll need to explain to people before they'll take a bite. They'll doubt the veracity of your explanation. They might think them the work of the devil. They'll even suspect they're shopbought (you may notice I placed "the work of the devil" before "shopbought". This was not an accident). But only you will know the love and attention you gave these sweeties to bring them into this cruel world. 

The fanciest jam fancies

I love, love, love jam fancies. So simple, so sweet. Dad used to pick up a packet of Kookaburra brand whenever we were in Kerang or Swan Hill and we'd scoff them all on the way home. No mean feat for a packet of around 20 sugary treats. I'm beginning to see where all my poor food habits formed. We'd pull apart the layers, lick off the jam and crunch on the biscuits in the back of the 1980s maroon Catholic wagon all the way back to the farm. Four kids would pile out of the car covered in crumbs and telltale pink sticky cheeks, all hepped up on sugar.

Every blog needs a macaron recipe, right?

Matt isn't the teasing kind - he's a gentleman who refuses to stoop to my level. There is one issue he does choose to rattle my cage on: leftovers. I made a lemon meringue pie recently and at the end of the recipe, I had a load of italian meringue left in the bowl. Matty joked there was no point getting out the tupperware because he'd just have rescue it from the pack of the fridge and throw it out in a week. I racked my brains for a recipe to use it all up, but nothing really tickled my fancy. Nothing, that is, until I found the old faithful, macaron.

The thinking man's Iced Vovo

I went to a small primary school in a tiny farming community in country Victoria. Before the bell would ring after recess and lunch, top 40 music would blare out over the school yard. You knew it was time to pack up your lunch box and head back to class. Nine times out of ten, I was still finishing off my Iced Vovos.