A Healthier Anzac Biscuit: Easy + Quick Recipe That Kids Love

Ah, the hunt for a more healthy Anzac biscuit was long and fierce.

Healthy Anzac biscuits fresh from the oven

Not really, I just changed the flour and reduced the sugar somewhat.

This is a very simple Anzac biscuit recipe, my kids can make it by themselves these days. And they do, but I must say that they eat an unholy amount of the raw mixture before the biscuits make it into the oven.

Anzac biscuits, or do you call them Anzac cookies? Served on the Greenwheat pottery my parents got for a wedding present in 1960 in Scotland.

Over the past few years, I’ve trained myself off commercial, mass-produced biscuits.   I really never eat them now.

But I could about a million bazillion of these Anzac biscuits.  Luckily, the kids eat them up very fast too and save me from myself.

I sometimes make a double batch and then freeze half to pull out and make biscuits with later… or just to nibble by the spoonful.

Anzac biscuit mixture, ready to freeze

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

  • 90g (1 cup) rolled oats
  • 200g (1.5 cups) plain wholemeal flour
  • 200g (1 cup) raw sugar
  • 60g (2/3 cup) desiccated coconut
  • 125g butter
  • 1 tbs (30g) golden syrup
  • 1 tsp bicarb of soca
  • 2 tbs boiling water
    1. Heat the oven to 160 degrees C.
    2. Mix oats, flour, coconut and sugar in a bowl.
    3. Melt butter and syrup together. I generally do this in the microwave, very gently.
    4. Mix water with bicarb of soda then pour onto butter/syrup mix. It will froth up madly.
    5. Stir in the dry ingredients. If the mixture is very crumbly, add in a bit more water. It should be easy to form a ball, but not wet.
    6. Form into balls and place on an oiled baking tray, flatten with a fork.
    7. Bake for 12 – 20 minutes depending on size/oven.
    8. Eat whilst warm. Enjoy immensely.
    9. Run around with kids to burn off the kilojoules!

If I don’t have raw sugar, I use brown sugar or caster sugar. It’s a very adaptable recipe.

NB the cup measurements are not 100% accurate, as the metric measurements do not correspond exactly.

Hot from the oven! These golden brown Anzac cookies will have a chewy centre. I often cook have half like this and then bake the other half a bit browner and then the biscuit is a firm, indeed hard, biscuit. It’s hard not to scoff heaps of the mixture!

Yes, I know, I know they’ve still got masses of butter and sugar, but using wholemeal flour and raw sugar is a wee touch healthier, don’t you reckon?

Pin me for later! 

Do try these, they are lovely. 

Do you have any twists on the old Anzac yourself?