In Australia and New Zealand we commemorate ANZAC Day on April 25. Rather than baking a batch of Anzac biscuits I thought I'd try my hand at making the Anzac Biscuit Tart from Tarts Anon.
The original recipe makes a 25cm tart so I needed to tweak the proportions to make a 16cm tart. I'd love to say that it all went smoothly, but it didn't and if/when I remake the tart I will make some key changes.
The tart has many components - a pastry shell/a coconut caramel/an Anzac biscuit and a coconut and almond frangipane. I used my own shortcrust pastry recipe, and it was the only element that worked as it should.
The coconut caramel seized. The Anzac biscuit doubled in size and was way too thick. Because ithe biscuit was so thick, it prevented the heat getting to the coconut frangipane so even after 40 minutes, the filling wasn't completely cooked. The 40 minute bake time ensured the biscuit was so well cooked, that it was almost impossible to cut!
Plans for the future. Make the biscuit layer much, much thinner and sandwich the biscuit to the almost completely cooked tart with a thin layer of the coconut dulce de leche and bake it for another 5 minutes to fuse the 2 layers. Despite all the problems, the tart tasted absolutely amazing.
Here's the recipe for you which makes a 16cm tart. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20-ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.
Anzac Biscuit Tart
Shortcrust pastry
120g plain flour
Pinch salt
60g cold unsalted butter, diced
2-3 tbs cold water
Coconut caramel
40g coconut cream
100g caster sugar
5g salt
50 g milk
45 g butter
approx 50 g Dulce de Leche
Anzac biscuit
35 g butter
6 g water
16 g golden syrup
40 g plain flour
25 g quick oats
40 g soft brown sugar
27 g desiccated coconut
pinch salt
1 tsp grated lemon rind
1/8 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Coconut cake batter
100 g butter
30 g natural almond meal
40 g desiccated coconut
50 g plain flour
¼ tsp baking powder
pinch salt
90 g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
80g eggs (1 and 1/2)
To finish
Icing sugar, for dusting
Pastry
To make the pastry, combine all the dry ingredients in a food processor, and whiz for a few seconds until well combined and free of lumps. Add the cold butter and whiz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add sufficient cold water and whiz until a soft dough just starts to form around the blade. Remove the dough from the food processor and gather the pastry into a ball; flatten slightly before wrapping in plastic and placing in the fridge. You’ll only need about 2/3 of the pastry dough to make a 16cm tart. The pastry freezes well so just wrap the remaining pastry in plastic wrap and store in the freezer.
Refrigerate the pastry for an hour and then roll out thinly - 4mm thick. Line a greased 16 cm flan tin with the pastry then return to the fridge for another 30 minutes.
Coconut caramel
In a saucepan, bring the coconut cream to a simmer and set aside. Add the sugar, salt, milk and butter to another saucepan bring to gentle simmer over medium heat. Continue to cook while whisking, to ensure it doesn't burn, and reduce the liquid until the mixture becomes thick and caramelised. At this point, remove the caramel from the stove, add the coconut cream and whisk to combine. Give it a quick blitz with a hand-held blender until shiny, then allow to cool. Once set, weigh this mixture and mix with an equal weight of dulce de leche and store in a container.
Anzac biscuit
Preheat your oven to 150°C fan forced/170°C conventional. Line a tray with baking paper.
Place the butter, golden syrup and water in a saucepan and warm gently. Mix all of the dry ingredients, except the bicarbonate of soda, with the lemon rind in a bowl and set aside. Once the butter and syrup mixture has fully dissolved, bring to a simmer and whisk in the bicarbonate of soda. As soon as the syrup foams and expands, pour into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix well.
Once a dough has formed, spoon it onto the lined baking tray, then spread thinly into a circle the same size as the base of your tart tin. Bake this mixture for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 120°C fan forced/140°C conventional and bake for a further 10 minutes. Then, while the biscuit is still hot, place the base of the tart tin on top and cut around it to get a clean circle.
Allow this to cool and set aside for later. Increase your oven temperature to 165°C, fan forced/185°C, conventional to preheat for baking the tart and place a baking tray on the middle shelf.
Coconut cake batter
Firstly, brown the butter. Place the 100g butter in a small saucepan over medium heat and cook gently until it turns a foamy tan brown and smells nutty. Remove the pan from the heat and pour into a heatproof bowl. Weigh the brown butter and if it’s less than 75g, just top it up with water. Place the bowl in the fridge for 15 minutes.
Weigh the dry ingredients, except the sugar, into a bowl and stir them together.
Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla extract together in a large bowl until pale. Gradually add the eggs and mix until well combined. Finally, mix in the dry ingredients, making sure that there are no lumps suspended throughout the batter.
To assemble and bake
To assemble the tart, spread 100 g of the coconut caramel over the base of the tart, then pour 325 g of the coconut batter on top. Place the biscuit circle on top, then transfer the tart into the preheated 165°C fan forced/185°C conventional oven to bake for approximately 30 minutes ( my filling wasn't cooked through after 40 minutes, so maybe 50 minutes to 1 hour) or until the crust is an even colour and the centre of the tart is firm. If the biscuit is getting too brown, cover with foil. Remove from the oven and allow to cool inside the tin.
Once cool, remove the tart from the tin and portion into slices. Finish each slice with a dusting of icing sugar.
It's always a pity when after so much hard work you can't cut a clean slice but not so bad when the tart tastes so delicious.
See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.
Bye for now,
Jillian
