These are a healthier version of everyone’s favourite Australian biscuit.
We have made this recipe numerous times now – it’s a winner.
Of course, I tweak, tweak and tweak recipes, so mine is a little different to the original recipe I found over at Teresa Cutter’s website. I absolutely love Teresa’s recipes – she makes really great healthy sweet treats. There is also a gluten-free and paleo friendly option for this biscuit on her site.
Really Healthy ANZAC Biccies
Vital Stats: egg free, dairy free, wheat free, vegan, vegetarian
So this is what you need:
1 cup almond meal
1 cup organic rolled oats
1 cup organic coconut shredded
1/2 cup rapadura sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup coconut oil
2 tablespoons apple juice concentrate
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
1 tablespoon water
This is how you do it:
Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Line a baking sheet with non-toxic baking paper.
In a mixing bowl, throw your almond meal, coconut, rapadura, cinnamon and the oats. Stir well.
Fling the coconut oil and the apple juice concentrate into a small saucepan and stir over a low heat.
Combine the bicarb and water, then add to the oil mix – it will froth up like a science experiment. Get the kids to watch for some cool mum points.
Add the frothy mix to your dry mix and combine it well. Add a little water if it’s too crumbly.
With wet hands, shape small balls of the dough and press together firmly.
I got about 15 biscuits from the mix, but it will depend on how much you sample as you go. 😉
Whack them onto the baking sheet.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, checking on them so they don’t go black and crispy.
Cool down on a wire rack and then eat.
These biccies will freeze well and keep in an airtight container for a week or so (they won’t last that long, because they are sooo yummy!)
As always, let me know if you make them and how you went. Tell me your tweaks too! Sharing, of course is always advised as we like to spread the love. 🙂
Want more recipes?
Check out these other healthy Anzac Biscuit recipes from some of my favourite wellness bloggers! And this amazing Anzac Slice recipe from The Root Cause.
Those ingredients sound so good!
wonderful to hear of a healthy version of this recipe, thanks very much.
I love that all the ingredients have great nutritional benefits !
what is rapadura sugar can i ask?
HI Nathalie!
Rapadura is basically just dehydrated sugar cane. It is sugar that is not heavily processed, so a lot healthier. Jo at Quirky Cooking wrote a really good blog post about the different types of more healthy sugars. Check it out here: http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com.au/2009/07/rapadura-sucanat-muscavado-turbinado.html
Unrefined cane sugar which retains all it’s vitamins ,minerals etc used in cooking ,just use instead of white or raw sugar
The look so yummy! could I replace the oats with rice flakes?? :-/
Hi Naturallykat! yes, you could, maybe half quinoa flakes and half rice flakes might work too? you may need to watch the timing as oats are a thicker, stronger flake ! thanks for stopping by 🙂 Sonia
I just made them & they are delicious!!
I changed a few ingredients as I didn’t have everything.
I used hazelnut meal instead of almond, agave syrup instead of apple juice concentrate and raw sugar as I didn’t have rapadura.
Oh and I also added some chia seeds as I add them to almost everything!
My kids love them, thanks!
that’s awesome Helen !!!! I am a recipe tweaker, so I get it !! I am going to make some this arvy and I am on no sugar atm so going to try with xylitol this time. Been a big day with march this morning ! 🙂
What can i replace Apple Juice concentrate with? I couldn’t find any at my health food store or supermarket. Where do you find it>
It is usually at the health food store or sometimes in the supermarket in the health food aisle. You can use honey, maple syrup or rice malt syrup instead. 🙂
These look great! Just letting you know I am sharing on my business page http://www.facebook.com/bounceoptimumhealthandwellbeing. I saw the link on the mamabake page!
Thanks Bounce Health and Fitness ! I liked you 🙂
No golden syrup?!! These have to be tasted to be believed! Please post some immediately 😉 Oh ok, I’ll make them myself 😉
let me know what you think!! 😉
What could I used in place of the almond meal that is still healthy. I am allergic to tree nuts and the kids’ school has a no nut policy? Thanks 😉
just extra flour should be okay Carla 🙂
Might try it with spelt flour or coconut flour!
let me know how you go 🙂
There is a technicality there as Almonds are actually a seed not a nut and I cannot give our daughter peanuts as it sets off her ezcema but Almonds don’t. I know it’s always a debate but I was just putting that out there. 🙂
Really? I never knew that !! Love this community – I am always learning!!
Yes, according to wikipedia… Peanuts are a legume and ‘botanically speaking’ almonds are a seed and not a nut. I personally am not allergic to peanuts but to all tree nuts, although in varying degrees (almonds cause a relatively mild reaction, cashews & brazil anaphylactic). I suspect it is due to cross contamination which is why I never touch peanuts, despite not being diagnosed allergic to them. As such, I never cook with any ‘nut’ flour, especially the common one, almond meal/flour – as I get very ill or at the very least a bit ill. Debate or not – it’s good to have an alternative for baking as soooo many healthy recipes are based around almond flour/meal.
Also would you bake it around 160 degrees (fan forced)? I think that’s what my original recipe uses, but that’s with flour & golden syrup…
I have a fan forced oven, but for baking biscuits, I normally put it on the gentle bake setting, so yes, 160 would probably be okay 🙂
I made these this morning and followed the recipe but 10 minutes into the oven and the balls had gone flat 🙁
hmmmm fgslim, I haven’t had that happen yet, not sure what the answer is!
Actually Sonia – so did mine 🙁 Exactly the same.
Now it will be a slice 🙂
I find that sometimes happens in recipes when the almond meal isn’t fine enough. Not an answer as such, but maybe something to check next time 🙂
Ahhh thanks for the tip Lorraine, that could explain it!
Thank you for your blog and recipes. I just made these biscuits. Mine definitely are not biscuits. They are muesli bars in the shape of biscuits. I didn’t have any almond meal/flour so I thought I would make my own in the food processor but the almonds did not process very finely, so they were not flour-like. And I remembered seeing when I looked at Elana’s Pantry that she said that Bobs red mill almond flour is too coarse for her recipes and mine was a lot coarser than that. So I thought I would grind the coconut and oats a bit like Theresa Cutter’s recipe but I did not do it as long or smooth as in that recipe. I also used golden syrup in place of the apple juice concentrate. My biscuits collapsed and spread, so they look like biscuits not balls. Anyway, they are staying together now that they have cooled and they are delicious, but I will have to try them with almond meal/flour to see if it was that or the golden syrup that made them spread. Thanks again. They are yummy even though I didn’t make them correctly.
I have made two lots now and tweaked the 2nd batch by adding walnuts and dried apricot bits. Both batches very yummy although my 4 yo did not like the lumpy walnuts (maybe will process them next time). My 4yo has very strong reaction to shelf sugar and im pleased to say no severe reaction to the rapadura sugar ! Thanks for the recipe.
that’s awesome Vicki – thanks for the feedback 🙂
I just made these! Divine. And I feel good eating them without all the refined craziness of regular biscuits. You are awesome xx
thanks Stacey – they are addictive – have you tried my Fig, Cinnamon and Pecan Biccies? Made them last night again – sooooo good! 🙂
No, I’m out of cinnamon! But I will soon x
Can I replace rapadura sugar with coconut sugar?
sure can! yum !
Great stuff. these look great, i will be giving these a go 🙂
let me know what you think!
These look very yummy must try .. However just wondering what can I use instead of apple juice concentrate??
Hi you can use anything like honey, golden syrup, maple syrup, rice syrup!
A definitely favourite in our house xx
Nothing beats a good biccy!
I’ve just pulled these out of the oven. They are delicious but super crumbly. What would you suggest using to make them stick better?
Hi Robyn a few people have said that, but mine never go crumbly, so I don’t know! You could always pop in an egg I guess! 🙂
What are the thermomix speeds and heating for this recipe? Cant wait to try it out!
So tasty, thank you for this healthy option. I used rice syrup instead of the apple juice (a lot sweeter), swapped almond meal for wheat germ & added dried mulberries. Delicious unfortunatley the bi carb didn’t fizz much so it became a slice. My family still loved it.
sounds good!
Interesting variation on the recipe! Glad its not just me who eats the raw baking…. LOL
I have no idea what my recipe is at home, but it doesn’t use coconut oil and apple juice concentrate! I will have to try that.
My kids LOVE Anzac biscuits. I freeze them and grab them out for a ‘sometimes’ lunchbox snack that I know is not too bad for them.
I also make a healthy brownie recipe that I freeze in portions for lunchboxes too.
I always use about 1/2 the sugar content in most recipes, because they’re always too sweet otherwise.
Thanks for the link to Teresas website – I can always use more healthy baking variations for the kids
It’s good to have a treat that is decent, nutritionally!
I made these yesterday and they were a hit, I used sunflower seed meal to make it school friendly and also added a bit of honey as the mix wasn’t sticking together well enough. My bi carb didn’t fizz either but it just made mine into cookies as I left enough space on the baking sheet. Now that I have used up the last of the oats and rapadura I will try the paleo version next time. Thanks for a yummy recipe that has much more nutritional value than the traditional method 🙂
thanks for letting me know about the sunflower meal Terri !! we don’t have a nuts free policy at our school, so I hadn’t tried it yet! 🙂
Just made these this morning and they taste delicious, even though I spread it as a slice instead of biscuits as they just weren’t holding together, even with extra water. My bicarb didn’t fizz either (and I used a new one). It was very crumbly which is fine for us but need to do something different if serving for guests. Could it be the coconut oil in the warmer weather that doesn’t hold it together as not as solid?
I had the same problem with it not holding together and I didn’t use coconut oil, but rice bran oil. I used maple syrup and I don’t think that was sticky enough. It seemed wet enough, but not sticky enough to hold together. I think with a flour based recipe, the flour acts like a glue.
Maybe add an egg, and adjust the dry ingredients for the added moisture? I don’t know!
Just made the Anzac bickies. I didn’t have any apple juice concentrate (I realised this AFTER I had started) so I replaced with vanilla Essence and it worked just fine. Yummo. Thank you.
Oh were they sweet enough? AJC is used as a sweetener instead of honey/syrup 🙂
Oh my goodness, I just made these. Ate half raw and have had 3 cooked. Delicious! I know I’m late but still wanted to say how good they were. Have also made your banana bread but too full to try that one!
Go Loretta!! Love both of those too! 🙂
Hi
I was a little disappointed with my variation on this recipe – I had no rapadura sugar so used Glucose powder, and used maple syrup instead of apple syrup and used rice bran oil instead of coconut oil. The resultant mix seemed crumbly, but when you attempted to put it into a ball, it was squelchy (most likely due to the coconut holding the fluid and releasing it as I squeezed…it felt quite wet) so I didn’t add more liquid. Really it just wasn’t sticky enough to hold together. I think maybe honey might be better than maple syrup as an alternative, also because maple syrup will tend to burn quicker too, but honey is stickier. I did add golden syrup to try to increase the stickiness, but that simply didn’t work.
So I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t hold up to variations on the ingredients. I also found the taste of the ‘dough’ (crumbles) pretty bland, despite having added the golden syrup – and I am not exactly a sweet tooth. It was sweet enough, just no particular flavour. Not even the cinnamon.
Any thoughts on how I can do variations when I don’t have the ingredients listed, and still get a sticky enough dough to hold together better?
THanks
Jodi
I have never used glucose powder – never heard of it. Yes, it doesn’t always work out when you substitute! 🙂
just made these with honey as I couldn’t get rapadura sugar on ANZAC day morning (Silly mummy!). But they have turned out fantastic, and even the dough was delicious. Thanks for the recipe
Thanks for the feedback Kesh 🙂
Hi Just made these but they are a little dry, slightly overcooked them. I used pear concentrate instead of apple.
Love love love these Anzac cookies. I have not made them for ages so Anzac day is the prefect opportunity. Thanks Natural new age mum x
Thanks Geraldine!! x
Hi
What temp should the oven be?
Hi Tanya, moderate oven, 180 degrees celsius. 🙂