An attempt at butter biscuits

If you are like me, the one thing that you cannot resist is a late-night-hot cuppa tea with beautiful butter biscuits from one of the street vendors, especially when you are travelling. When I was little, we used to go on long distance buses pretty often and the thing that I would always get when the bus makes a stop is hot milky chai and at least four of those salty butter biscuits. I have grown up with the flavour of these biscuits. And today I have attempted to recreate the flavour, thanks to the recipe for benne biscuits from the Foodie's Hope blog. I have modified some of the amounts in an attempt to make the biscuits a bit more salty.

How to make them
1. Sift 1 cup plain/all purpose/Maida flour, 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp of salt.
2. Cream 1/2 cup softened Butter and about 1/3 cup white Sugar until creamy and fluffy (I used a less than 1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons of sugar, well it was probably closer to half a cup!).
3. Add in the flour mix little by little to make a soft dough, not sticky. Preheat the oven to 350C
4. Make about 12-14 balls lightly rolling on your palm,flatten a bit on top. Do not press too hard. (My mom sort of did this her way)
5. Place them on baking sheet 2" apart (I used a greased baking sheet)
6. Place the sheet in the oven and bake for 10-15mins or until very slightly golden but they must remain almost white when done.
7. Cool on a rack, and enjoy!!

So, except for the burnt underside of these cookies, they tasted yum! It was slightly harder than the cookies sold at those tea-stalls, so may be next time I think I will increase the fat content. These cookies are not particularly healthy but who says indulgence is wrong anyway?! Can't believe my dad liked it.
Today when it is snowing here (yeah yet again!), nothing seems more satisfying than a cup of hot madras filter coffee with one or two of those warm salty delights.

Comments

From "The Baker's Daughter"

I love to read books and I love to cook- so "Cook the Books" event called out to me, what more can I say? When I didn't want to just sit around and catch up Breaking Bad episodes leading up to the finale yesterday, I threw these buns and some great vegan-gluten free strawberry cupcakes in the mix. The book chosen for the bi-monthly event Cook the Books is Sarah McCoy's "The Baker's Daughter "- a story about that intertwines food, history and a great narrative (toggles between WWII times in Germany and the present). I am just about a third done and so far like what I have read. I will post the review once I am done reading but in the meantime I leave you with these gorgeous buns that are traditionally made on St. Thomas Day that falls on Dec 21st (which also happens to be the shortest day). Thomasplitzchen Buns 1 cups all-purpose flour 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 cup butter 1/4 cup raw sugar 1 tsp baking powder 1/4 cup almond milk Filli

Noel Nut balls

Oops, I forgot to post my day 4 recipe for the marathon, I did post day 5 with the chocolate cake! Anyway barring that mistake, this would be the day 6 of the marathon and the 11th in my books (confusing numbers eh?!) Well these are yet another batch of cookies that I made to be sent to friends this year- absolutely delicious people! A success story modified from the Martha Stewart recipe for Noel Nut balls , I am beginning to like her cookie recipes... Ingredients 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature 1/2 cup vegetable shortening 2 tbsp honey 1 tsp orange juice 2 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour 3/4 cup chopped pecans (best if chopped by hand) 1/2 cup sifted confectioners' sugar, plus more for rolling 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg 1/2 tsp clove powder Method Cream butter and honey until fluffy. Add orange juice, and beat to combine. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, pecans, confectioners' sugar, and salt, nutmeg, clove powder. Add

Cookies galore for friends- Lime Meltaways

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion and desire- Aristotle You do understand that I had to do this, don't you? The 7 day-7 recipe marathon that a lot of us have signed up for, check Nupur's blog to check about rest of the players. This year, just like the last, I am making a bunch of cookies for friends. Lime meltaways as Martha Stewart calls them are the first of the lot. They have the very refreshing, very familiar citrus flavor and they were so delicate that I decided not to ship them. Ingredients 12 tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature (I did half butter and half crisco vegetable shortening) 1 cup confectioners' sugar Grated zest of 2 limes 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract 1 3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour 2 tbsp cornstarch 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg 1 tsp ginger powder 1/4 teaspoon salt Method Cream butter and 1/3 c

Soulful Creations

Search This Blog