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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.

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