Our home ovens are our pandora boxes; entailing celebrations, surprises and what not. Bringing cheer to our mundane days and spark to the special one. What’s cooking inside that box is always a mystery, and the smell that lingers on before and after is enough to keep curious minds awake and igniting appetite.
We grew up on hand made biscuits from our mums, grandmas and local stores/home bakeries having their selections, I can swear upon. Later, they turned into fancy and extravagant bakeries/franchises. What did not change, is the comfort, nostalgia and perfect companionship with your cuppa. Irrespective if you are a tea or a coffee person. Serving as your travel partners or satisfying your hunger pangs whenever.
Here is the ode to those biscuits that are reminiscent of my childhood days, with sugar adjusted to my liking
How to eat it?
This is enjoyed as a tea time snack.
Ingredients
1 cup All Purpose Flour ( or 1/2 cup whole wheat flour + 1/2 cup corn flour)
0.5 cups Besan/Gram flour
2.5 tbsps Sooji/ Semolina
1/2 cup Unsalted Butter/Ghee (For vegan version add any vegan butter or margarine)
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
A pinch of salt
1/2 tsp Powdered cinnamon
2 tbsps Yoghurt ( For vegan version add vegan yogurt )
Milk - as required for making the right consistency (For vegan version any vegan milk can be added)
Nuts that your prefer - for Garnishing
Recipe
👩🍳 Take a mixing bowl with the room temperature ghee or butter in it. Add sugar and whisk the mixture till it becomes light and fluffy. You can use a hand blender too to achieve the result faster
👩🍳 Sift all the dry ingredients into a separate bowl.
👩🍳 Add this to the creamed butter mixture little at a time and keep mixing. Knead it to form a soft dough. At this point, gently introduce milk to your mixture to aid your kneading process. Don’t go overboard with milk otherwise the dough becomes really slimy.
👩🍳 Cover the dough and let it rest in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes.
👩🍳 Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (150 C). Make small gooseberry sized balls of the dough.
👩🍳 Smoothen the balls by rolling in between your palm. Apply some ghee in your palms and gently press the ball to give them the desired shape. A few cracks here and there is fine.
👩🍳 Place them on a cookie sheet. Make sure to leave some space in between as the biscuits will expand a bit during baking
👩🍳 If you want to make it richer, press a pistachio or raisin or cashew or almond on top of the balls by making a slight indentation on the top of the ball with the tip of your thumb.
👩🍳 Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 15 minutes until the bottom of the cookies turn light golden brown. If you are not sure of the oven, keep a tap on your biscuits after 10 minutes to get an idea of how long they need to stay in the oven.
👩🍳 Remove from the oven and gently transfer the cookies to a cooling rack. The cookies will be very soft at this stage.
👩🍳 After it cools completely, store in an airtight container.
Enjoy the crunch and let Nostalgia take you to the memory you forever want to hold on to. And create some new ones too
Total
About 60 min