Some very nostalgic Kiwi baking - ANZAC biscuits, peanut brownies and cookie buns
Why the hell is old school Kiwi baking so damn good? Sometimes it’s best not to ask questions. It just is.
Pal Jasper was making my ginger crunch recipe in San Diego for some uninitiated American friends (it’s not really heard of there). The effusive end result, put me on a hard path down nostalgia lane.
For all of it’s simplicity, traditional, old-school kiwi baking is powerfully evocative; it transports you back to a time and a place in a way that is astoundingly, tantalisingly nostalgic.
It is straightforward, no-fuss, very rarely elaborate or fancy, and universally adored.
I’m yet to come across someone who spurns a good hunk of ginger crunch or a cinnamon oyster. Those out of the loop may not know what the hell you’re on about initially (you cannot imagine the confusion/perturbation when I first made a batch of cinnamon oysters for some German friends in Berlin), but they will very rapidly cotton on.
Given the power this sort of stuff has to unlock memory, I find the timing apt.
ANZAC Day is a poignantly unifying holiday for New Zealanders. My grandfather was a career soldier and later enthusiastic military historian who made sure that the meaning of such things were not lost on us sprogs.
My grandmother had a particular way of making ANZAC biscuits - they were thicker than the usual ones, and I prefer them that way. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why except that they keep me in memory of them both. And that, I think, is more than enough.
My grandmother on my mother’s side had the most adorable habit of arriving to stay at the farm when we were kids with a car load of home baking. And I mean the most nostalgic, old school stuff imaginable. Bran biscuits (we’d slather them in butter), enormous chocolate cakes, fruit cakes, jars of preserves and chutney - and these cookie buns. I haven’t made them in a couple of years, but as soon as I bit into one, I was nine years old again… I could just about hear her soft, gentle voice telling me to save some room for dinner.
Her sister’s peanut brownies were another hugely popular staple. I’m not much of a peanut person, but these are absolutely delicious. The smell of them baking took me on yet another tangent of childhood memories, and a potent reminder not to be so bloody serious and adult all of the time.
As I say, powerful stuff, baking. Go forth and bake.
ANZAC BISCUITS
