DELICIOUS Gluten Free Anzac Biscuits!

Heads up Gluten Free eaters! I have a deeeelicious Gluten Free ANZAC biscuit recipe for you! There's no need to miss out on these tasty, historical treats this ANZAC Day. They're based on my very popular chewy or crunchy ANZAC Biscuit recipe but with a lot of testing to ensure that they give you the best gluten free ANZAC Day biscuit!

ANZAC Biscuits are a delicious biscuit baked around ANZAC Day to commemorate the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops that served in First World War. They're delicious biscuits made with oats, coconut, brown sugar and golden syrup. People tend to either like chewy ANZAC Biscuits or crispy/crunchy ones. These gluten free biscuits are a little bit chewy and a little bit crunchy. The base is crispy but the inside has a nice chewiness to it.

ANZAC Biscuits are not only absolutely delicious but they last for a few weeks-not that we really ever test that because they get gobbled up so quickly! We love them so much that we make ice cream sandwiches with them and we've also made S'mores with them which is very untraditional.

Note for Gluten Free Eaters: rolled oats are naturally gluten free but are often processed in a facility that processes flour so look specifically for Gluten Free or Wheat Free Rolled Oats. Australia is the only country that doesn't classify oats as gluten free. According to Coeliac Australia, "The Australian Food Standard prohibits the use of a 'gluten free' claim on oat containing products. The Australian food standard differs to the regulations in Europe and the USA, where oats can be marketed as 'gluten free'.

What is Golden Syrup? Golden Syrup is produced when refining sugar cane or sugar beet juice into sugar. It's easy to find in the UK and Australia but isn't easily found in North America. If you don't have golden syrup, brown rice syrup is a good substitute or in a pinch treacle or honey is similar.

I now have a whole cookie jar's worth of these ANZAC biscuits because of all the recipe testing. Gluten free baking is still a bit new for me so I have to do a lot of attempts. I found the best result with oat flour which I chose to use because oats make up a large part of ANZAC biscuits. In terms of proportions, you do have to use more oat flour than if you were doing a regular plain flour ANZAC biscuit.

One rule is that you really must call them ANZAC biscuits and not cookies. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, "Referring to these products as ‘Anzac Cookies’ is generally not approved, due to the non-Australian overtones." A lot of businesses have been taken to task over calling them ANZAC cookies and I am always mindful to not make the same mistake or risk doing the wrong thing and incurring the wrath of social media. When it came around to taking these photos I shot them and uploaded them and looked at them in horror. Had I spelled the word biscuit incorrectly?

Do you ever look at a word and wonder if you've spelt it correctly? I squinted, my heart beat increasing. "Oh nooooo," I said as the autumn light was rapidly fading. I sounded it out and then googled it. And although it looked so very wrong to me it was correctly spelled.

Relieved, I sat down with a cup of tea and one of these ANZAC biscuits. Phew!

So tell me Dear Reader, are you a gluten free eater or know any? Did you know the rules around ANZAC biscuits?

Gluten Free Anzac Biscuits

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 15 minutes plus 1 hour refrigeration time

Cooking time: 20 minutes per tray

Serves: 24 biscuits

• 245g/8.ozs. oat flour
• 90g/3ozs. rolled oats
• 50g/1.7ozs. desiccated coconut
• 170g/6ozs. brown sugar
• 75g/2.6ozs. caster or superfine sugar
• 135g/4.7ozs. butter, salted
• 60ml hot water
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup
• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda
• 2/3 teaspoon fine salt

Step 1 - Mix the oat flour, rolled oats, coconut, brown sugar and white sugar in a large bowl making sure to crush any lumps in the brown sugar and mix well.

Step 2 - Heat the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan on medium high heat and leave to brown (detailed instructions on how to brown butter). Meanwhile mix the hot water, golden syrup, vanilla bean paste, bicarb and salt together in a bowl. When the butter is bubbling and starts to turn a bit brown in parts of the froth add this golden sugar syrup to the flour mixture and mix well (don't worry if it froths, it's supposed to). Place in the fridge for 1 hour and allow to set firm.

Step 3 - Preheat oven to 160C/320F. Roll cookie dough into small walnut-sized balls (a 3/4oz small ice cream scoop, not a full sized one). Place 6 balls per tray and bake for 10-20 minutes. Cool on the tray for 5 minutes and then remove from the tray (they're quite delicate when first baked).