Masala Biscuits / Khara Biscuits (Savoury Crackers)

Masala biscuits were on my to do list since long. I had almost bookmarked 4-5 recipes but finally went ahead with this one for the main reason that this recipe called for less butter :) when compared to others.

Masala Biscuits Recipe:

Recipe Source : Nammaruchi

Makes 30-35 small square sized biscuits

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour (Maida) - 1 cup (150 gms)
• Butter - 4 tbsp
• Sesame seeds - 1 tbsp
• Curry leaves - 1 tbsp torn into pieces (optional)
• Coriander leaves - 1 tbsp chopped finely
• Green chillies - 2 chopped finely
• Salt - 1 tsp
• Sugar - 1/2 tsp
• Milk - 4 tbsp (Adjust according to the consistency of the dough)

Method:

1. In a mixing bowl, add flour with butter (at room temperature) , rub it gently until it resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Now add salt,sugar, curryleaves, corinader leaves, sesame seeds, green chillies and milk. Knead it to a stiff dough closely like a chapathi dough.
3. Flour the surface and roll the dough thin of about 1/4 inch thickensss.Cut with cookie cutter with desired shapes. I used the cutter at the back of the spoon with design and cut into small squares.
4. Collect the scraps and repeat the process until you are done with the entire dough.Prick the biscuits with fork to avoid puffing up.
5. Preheat the oven at 180 deg C for 10mins. Meanwhile arrange the biscuits in a baking tray with butter paper.
6. Bake the biscuits for about 15-20 mins. Keep an eye after 15mins.Once taken out of the oven, the biscuits are soft, when cooled down they become crispy.

My Notes :

• You can add mint leaves too for the extra flavour.
• Dont estimate the biscuits soon after they are taken from the oven and overbake it. I tell you, they are soft when hot...once cooled down they are crispy. If you overbake the biscuits they will be hard.
• Increase the green chillies according to your spice level.
• These are perfect to go for teatime
• The more thin you roll out the crispier the cookies will come
• Store in airtight container and it keeps well for about a week
• You can replace butter with oil, but adjust milk accordingly to make a stiff dough
• Ajwain / omam or jeera can also be added.

The aroma that comes when the biscuits are baked is absolutely heavenly. This recipe can be tweaked to make the normal salt and sweet biscuits as in the orginal recipe which I've tried too. These masala biscuits are highly addictive and you cant stop with one or two :)

I got around 30-35 small square crackers. The quantity totally depends on the size of the crackers. The orginal recipe is for ajwain/omam biscuits which I used as a base for my masala biscuits and they turned out super good.

Almond Oats Cookies

Cookies are always my favorite slightly crunchy and soft making it perfect to pair with a cup of coffee. I've already made oats cookies and this is a total different version I tried from Litebite long back. I like these cookies for its simplicity and easiness to make......

Almond Oats Cookies Recipe

Recipe Reference : Litebite

Ingredients:

• Almond powdered - 1/4 cup
• Oats - 1 cup
• Wheat flour - 1/4 cup
• Honey - 1/4 cup
• Curd - 2 tbsp
• Vanilla/Almond essence - 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Powder the almonds using a mixer to a coarse powder and keep aside. Then powder oats to a fine powder.
2. In a wide bowl, mix oats with wheat flour, powdered almonds, honey and essence. Add curd little by little to make a soft dough which should hold together easily. If 2tbsp isnt enough add little more till it forms a dough.
3. Cover the dough with a plastic wrapper and refrigerate for 1hr.
4. Pinch small sized balls , make them into smooth balls then flatten them a little with your palm and then press with a fork to flatten a little more and to get the lines
5. Arrange them in a baking tray lined wit butter paper/cookie sheet such that there is atleast 2 inches gap between each cookie
6. 
   Preheat oven at 180 deg C for 10mins and bake them for 15-20mins. Check after 15mins, the bottom and the sides turns slightly browned.
7. The cookies at this stage is softer but dont overbake them it will harden after cooling down. The cookies are slightly crispy and more crunchier in texture.

My Notes:

• Adjust adding curd , add it little by little till it forms a dough. Honey with almonds and oats gives a nice flavour to the cookies
• Do not be tempted to overbake the cookies seeing the texture once removed from the oven. Just confirm by checking the sides and bottom. If you overbake then the cookies will be hard
• The orginal recipe called for almond meal which can be prepared by washing them, drying them and then powdering to a coarse powder in a blender.
• You can use powdered sugar replacing honey, but sure honey gives an extra flavour
• You can flatten the cookies even more thinner and bake them for a little lower time say 12-15mins

Since I baked these cookies, its been regular as its low in fat and mainly very easy to fold in all the ingredients....tada you are done with your cookies. Perfect with a cup of coffee as its mildy sweet.

Lookwise its a bit crumbly but I powdered my oats and almonds to a little powdery form so my cookies were smooth.

Baking cookies always cheer me up as the first baked item in my oven was cookies and the first thing I messed up was the same cookies :) So whenever I get them right I feel proud and happy :)

Oats Cookies / Oats Cornflakes Cookies

I tried these oats cookies sometime back and in the same week I tried it twice one with the orginal measurement and the next time a low fat version. I liked both of them as I luv oats in any form, so me and amma enjoyed these cookies and it was emptied in no time that I baked another batch just for click sake :) It is sure a keeper and a winning recipe!!

I tried these cookies from 4th Sense Cooking and wanted to post it on her special day...Happy Bday Nithi!! :) Hope you have a wonderful day as wonderful as you are!!

Yay!! Finally I got my measuring cups set the pink ones u see in these pics....All these days I had only 1 cup and 1/2 cup with which I used to measure manually. Though it didnt let me down in most of my baked goodies I was crazy and keen in getting a set. The most common ones I found in Chennai was a red set and I didnt want in red so was waiting....

After moving to CBE, I almost visited all branches of Nilgiris and finally when I found it in Race Cource branch, my joy knew no bounds. These days I feel so happy in shopping for mittu and Sharmis Passions than for myself. Thanks to hubby for taking so much strains to get me these cups.

Okay with no further delay onto the recipe :) The recipe is very simple and quick to make

Ingredients:

• Oats - 3/4 cup
• Cornflakes - 1/4 cup
• All purpose flour - 3 tbsp
• Brown sugar - 1/4 cup
• Butter/cooking oil - 1/4 cup
• Salt - 1/4 tsp

Method:

1. Grind oats, brown sugar and cornflakes each seperately to a fine powder and keep it aside.



2. Beat butter and powdered sugar until creamy. Then add powdered oats, cornflakes,maida, salt and make a dough. Flatten it slightly and wrap it in a plastic sheet and chill it for 15mins.



3. Take out the dough, pinch equal balls from it and roll them smoothly as possible then press it lightly with your palm with less pressure. Then dip the fork in flour and press it slightly to get those lines on your cookies.



4. Preheat oven to 180 deg C to 10mins. Meanwhile line a baking tray and place these cookies leaving atleast 1/4 inch gap between each cookie.



5. Bake the cookies for 15-20mins(not more than that) till the base turns golden brown. Cool them and then store it in airtight container and enjoy ur cookies!

Low fat version Ingredients:

• Oats - 3/4 cup
• Cornflakes - 1/4 cup
• Brown sugar - 1/4 cup
• Wheat Flour - 3 tbsp
• Milk - little less than 1/4 cup (add and adjust accordingly)
• Salt - a pinch

The method is the same as above. These low fat cookies are a bit chewy and crunchier while the orginal cookies are crispier. These are light teatime cookies and goes well with a hot cup of coffee.

My Notes :

• Do not forget to leave sufficient gap between each cookies else the cookies will loose its shape.



• The smoother the balls you make, your cookies will have less cracks. But still oats and cornflakes are crumbly in texture so will definitely have few cracks atleast , but our aim is to minimise it :)



• Add a tsp of milk if your dough isnt getting together - adjust accordingly.



• You can skip cornflakes and make it as plain oats cookies. If skipping cornflakes add 1 cup oats.

This click below was kind of intentional, most of the time my photoshoot is with mittu around. This time she was very tempted to see the sugar being placed so kept on trying to reach it while I was restricting her. At one stage I finally asked her to come and take while making myself ready for the click :)

See my little ant reaching for the sugar :)

I have tried many dishes from Nags Edible Garden, but this Corn in Onion Sauce is my fav so I am sending this to Blogger marathon event

Vanilla Chocolate Yo Yo Biscuits

Yo-Yo!! I've made these biscuits thrice so far as its everyones favourite at home including my little one. Inspite of the amount of butter the recipe calls, I am addicted to its taste. My lil one likes it without cream so I sandwiched the cream only for few biscuits as I too dont like cream in biscuits.

I was very surprised and happy when my lil one refused to have the bakery bought butter biscuit after she had these yo yo.......Wat else can make the best compliment for a mother?!

Vanilla Chocolate Yo Yo Biscuits

Recipe Source : My Diverse Kitchen

Makes 25-30 biscuits

Ingredients:

For the biscuits:

• Maida - 1 cup
• Powdered Sugar - 1/4 cup
• Butter, softened - 125 gms
• Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
• Vanilla flavoured custard powder - 1/4 cup

For the cream:

• Butter, softened - 25 gms
• Powdered sugar - 1/4 cup
• Coco Powder - 2 tsp
• Custard powder - 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Mix custard powder and maida, keep aside. Cream butter and sugar until creamy, add vanilla essence to it.



2. Now add custard powder, maida to butter sugar mixture and mix well to form smooth dough.Chill the dough for 30mins.



3. The dough would be firm by this time. Now pinch off equal bits and roll them into balls and press it lightly with the fork dipped in flour to get the marks on top. Repeat this for the entire dough and place them in the baking tray.



4. Chill the biscuits until preheating time. Preheat the oven to 170 deg C for 10mins. Now bake the biscuits for 15-17mins. Allow them to cool completely.



5. Now add the ingredients under buttercream and beat well until creamy. Sandwich the cream between 2 biscuits and enjoy your yoyo biscuits. Store it in airtight container.

My Notes :

• Do not be tempted to overbake, it will make the cookies loose the melt in the mouth texture.



• Try to make balls with no cracks, so that your biscuits would be smooth when you press them with fork.The biscuits stay crispy for about a week in room temperature itself.



• You can also keep the buttercream , apply it whenever u need instead of applying and storing it.



• I reduced the sugar level for the cream part as the biscuits are already sweet themselves.You can increase it of you want your cream to be more sweeter.

These biscuits just melt in the mouth so take care not to overbake. It has a unique taste and custard powder adds a different flavour to these biscuits. I havent tasted any biscuit with custard flavour so instantly got addicted to its taste.

Once it cools down, store in airtight container to enjoy the crispness for a week. These biscuits tastes good even without the cream, and cream adds an extra touch to these cuties. These biscuits are named after the famous yoyo toy .

Eggless Hearty Jam Biscuits

I baked these biscuits last week and these biscuits were a instant hit at home. I had valentines day in mind so planned for this post in advance :) Will you believe I took around 500 pics in 3 schedules and most of them dissatisfied me, but finally selected these....:)

U want & u get, that's luck,

U want & u wait, that's time.

U want but u compromise, that's life.

U want & u wait & u don't compromise that's LOVE!!

Happy Valentines Day!!

Eggless Hearty Jam Biscuits Recipe

Recipe Source : Divine Taste

Makes 25-30 biscuits

Ingredients:

• Maida - 1 cup
• Custard Powder - 3/4 cup
• Thick Curd - 1/4 cup (adjust according to the dough consistency)
• Butter - 2 tbsp
• Icing Sugar - 1/2 cup
• Cornflour - 1 tbsp
• Vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp
• Mixed Fruit Jam - As required

Method:

1. Mix maida, cornflour and custard powder, keep aside.Soft butter, add sugar to it and cream well. Then add curd, vanilla essence and beat well until creamy.



2. Then add custard powder mixture to the butter sugar mixture and make it to soft dough. If your dough is sticky add little maida to make it a soft pilable dough.



3. Roll the dough on a flat surface using chapathi roller for about 5mm thickness. Then cut out shapes using cookie cutter. Collect the remaining dough and repeat the process.



4. Preheat oven to 180 deg C for 10mins. Meanwhile make a small dent in the middle of all the biscuits using a small round lid and apply a very thin layer of jam in it.Arrange it in a baking tray with aluminium foil lined.



5. Bake it for 12-15mins at 180 deg C. Allow it to cool and store them in airtight container.

My Notes:

• As I reduced the butter and replaced it with curd, the biscuits slightly puffed up, oozing out jam. So in the next batch I applied a very thin layer of jam.



• Though the butter is reduced, the crispness is perfect. The only difference I found with reducing butter was that the biscuits started to soften after 3 days. I'm sure it will stay crispy for more time when the orginal mentioned quantity of butter is added.



• I used mixed fruit jam, you can use your favorite flavour of jam. But mixed fruit went well with the custard powder flavour.

I am sure this is a kid pleaser as my lil one enjoyed it to the core. Though she first licked only the jam, later she liked the taste of the biscuits too.

Eggless Choco Chips Yogurt Cookies

Cookies are always very special to me, as my first baking experience started with them. Since the day I bought choco chips, I wanted to try a eggless cookie version with it and finally these cookies caught my eyes from Sunitas site. I've always admired her low fat yet delicious looking baking goodies. I didnt make any modifications just very small adjustments and they turned out good.

Ingredients:

• Oats - 1/4 cup
• Wheat flour (Chapathi flour) - 3/4 cup [You can substitute it with APF/Maida too]
• Baking soda - a pinch
• Coconut - 4 tsp
• Chocolate chips - 3 tbsp
• Yogurt(Thick Curd) - 3 tblsp
• Honey - 4 tblsp
• Cooking oil- 3 tblsp
• Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Method:

1. In a wide bowl, mix together the flour, oats, baking soda, coconut and chocolate chips. In another bowl, mix yogurt, oil, honey and vanilla essence.



2. Now make a well in the centre of the oats flour mixture and add in the yogurt mixture. Just fold in no need to knead or overmix it.



3. Line a baking tray with silver foil. Now pre-heat the oven at 170 deg C. Make equal sized balls of the mixture and place them in rows, slightly apart from each other.Flatten the balls with the back of a fork which will give the lines for the cookies.



4. Place the tray in the centre of the pre-heated oven and bake for about 15- 20 mins or till the tops are very slightly brown.



5. Remove from the oven and Let them cool on the tray for a minute and then transfer to a rack to cool completely before storing in air tight containers.

Note : I am sure this would taste great when made with APF(maida) also though I havent tried them myself.

Oats Wheat Sesame Crackers / Squares

I tried Rc's sesame sticks and just luved the taste. I modified the recipe a bit instead of APF I added wheat flour.... sure a guilt free snack with the goodness of wheat,oats and sesame! The first pic was clicked 2-3 months before and the second click was the recent one....hence the variation :)

Ingredients :

• Wheat flour (Atta) - 1 cup
• Oats - ½ cup powdered coarsely( I used quaker)
• Oil - 2 tbsp
• Butter - 1 Tbsp (add more if you prefer crispy crackers)
• Sesame seeds - ¼ cup
• Garlic paste - 3 tsp
• Salt per taste
• Baking Powder - ½ tsp
• Water - as reqd to knead the dough

Method:

1. ln a bowl add the wheat flour, oats, baking powder, and salt. Add garlic paste, sesame seeds.



2. Combine well, add oil.Melt the butter lil(mine got melted by itself after I took it out from chiller due to this scorching summer ;))and add at this stage. Add water little by little to form a thick chapathi like dough. Keep aside undisturbed for 30mins.



3. Divide the dough into half. Roll each half thin and cut into squares or sticks. Combine the scrappings and repeat the same with the other half too.



4. Preheat oven to 180C for 10 mins. Place the squares on a greased baking sheet and bake for about 15-18 minutes or until the crackers are crisp. The baking time depends on the thickness of the squares and the oven settings

Store in a air tight container. It can be stored upto a week.I strongly recommend adding atleast 1tbsp butter.

The crackers were crunchy and little crispy...we enjoyed it as a teatime snack.The sesame flavour in every bite was so tasty.

Shortbread Cookies

A year in blogging or bonding should I ask?! Yes this blog has been a part of my life these days.Little did I expect this when I started sharmispassions?! Definitely a noooo!!!

This blog has

1.Earned me so many new friends and few are even close now.

2.Made me learn so many things about food photography.

3.Made the lazy me cook good food and venture even the baking world.

4.Made me aware that there are so many innovative recipes in world which can tempt you to taste even which u hate the most.

5.Made me learn a bit of design and photoshop(though I was reluctant when this was given to me to take up as a career).

And thanks to all of you who have made this blog lively by your motivating and lovely comments.

Now coming to todays cookies...On Vday, made up my mind to corner all the health factors for a while and went ahead with this shortbread cookies from here. Gave a variation of adding cornflour as suggested and they turned out a bit crispy and melt in the mouth texture.I did reserve few to check if the crispiness was maintained the next day too and yes it was exactly the same.

Ingredients :

• APF - 150 gms
• Cornflour - 50 gms
• Salt - a pinch
• Unsalted butter - 100 gms
• Powdered sugar - 50 gms
• Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Method :

1. In a separate bowl sift the flour with salt. Set aside.

2. Cream butter,add sugar and beat until its smooth - it takes about 5mins. Add vanilla essence and mix well.

3. Now add APF to the butter sugar mixture and bring it to a dough. Flatten the dough into disk shape, wrap in a plastic cover and refrigerate for an hr.

4. On a flat surface roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into your desired shapes and place these cookies on the prepared baking sheet and again refrigerate it for 10-15 minutes.This will firm up the dough for the cookies to maintain their shape.

5. Meanwhile u can preheat the oven to 175deg C for 10mins. Bake the cookies for 12-15 mins The actual recipe says 8-10mins but my cookies took exactly 15mins to bake.

NOTE: If you feel like bread crumble texture after mixing the flour, sugar and butter, you can sprinkle few drops of milk to form the dough like texture for easy rolling and cutting.

This makes 20 shortbreads. This kept in an airtight container will go well for a week.

I often had this mind : What are shortbreads and how they are different from normal cookies? Here is the description from wikipedia

Shortbread is a type of biscuit which is traditionally made from one part white sugar, two parts butter, and three parts of flour. Shortbread is so named because of its crumbly texture (from an old meaning of the word short). Shortbread biscuits are often associated with normal egg-based biscuits, but they hold their shape under pressure, making them ideal for packed meals.

Shortbreads are baked at low temperature to avoid browning. When cooked, it is nearly white, or a light golden brown.

They may be sprinkled with more sugar while cooling. It may even be crumbly before cooled, but will become firmer after cooling. Hmm the taste was heavenly and just melts in ur mouth!!

Low fat Cumin Cookies

Though this is my second attempt baking in my new OTG, it was so much of fun & excitement. I was sitting next to the oven throughout the 20mins of baking, peeping through the glass door :)

The recipe is from here But I modified a bit....I used 1/2 cup wheat flour with 1/2 of APF added pepper powder, still the cookies turned out soo gud. The next time I'l try it fully with wheat flour. So here is the recipe of the cookies that impressed everyone at home.

Ingredients:

• Maida/All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
• Wheat flour(atta) - 1/2 cup
• Pepper powder - 1/2 tbsp
• Cumin seeds - 1 tbsp
• Baking soda - a pinch
• Salt - to taste
• Sugar - 1/2 tsp
• Oil - 3 tbsp
• Milk - as reqd to knead to a stiff dough (I used 1/4 cup)

Method:

1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, sugar, salt and oil. Add the milk and knead to a stiff dough till its not sticky.

2. Roll the dough to about 2mms thick, but this didnt work out for me as I cudnt roll it evenly so what I did was to press it in the roti maker, this way it was easy and quick!

3. Using a cookie cutter cut into round shapes, I used a lid to cut it. Now bring together the remaining scrapings, roll out again and repeat the process till the entire dough gets over.

4. Pre heat the oven at 180 deg C for 10mins. Grease the baking tray, arrange the cookies and place the tray in the center of the preheated oven and bake for 20mins.

5. Remove the cookies from the oven, allow it to cool and then store them in air tight containers.

NOTE:The actual recipe says 20-25 mins but mine got baked in 20mins so keep an eye after 20mins.

They were crispy and little crunchy......The pepper & cumin flavour compliments each other well, making it perfect to munch during tea time!

Eggless Melting Moments - Choco Cookies!

Since long I wanted to try a cookie and the top in my list was Mahi's oats cookies but then when I saw these brownies I cudnt resist myself......Did I mention, I just luv brown!! This is my first cookie baking experience.....and thank god it didnt turn out messy, It was quite decent except for the pics.....:( I nagged Nags ;) for the cup measurements and she was kind enough to reply so quicky. Finally yesterday I took up courage to bake these lovely melting moments. Here are the measurements that I used:

Ingredients:
Butter - 3/4 cup + 1tbsp
Cornflour - 1/2 cup
Maida - 1 cup
Coco powder - 1 and 3/4 tbsp
Powdered sugar - 3/4 cup

With this I got 13 cookies medium sized ones!

Method:
1.Beat butter and sugar until smooth and creamy.

2.Mix maida, cornflour and coco together in a seperate bowl until all 3 are well combined.

3.Add the flour mixture little at a time to the butter mixture and mix until its combined well.
NOTE : The dough should be moist enough to roll them into balls. When I combined the mixture I found them very dry that I cudnt roll it so I added 1more tbsp of butter to make it greasy and roll it easily.

4.Make small balls with the dough and press to small round shapes. Arrange them in the oven with 2 inches apart. The cookies spread generously while baking hence the spacing. As Nags said the the cookies didn't stick to the tray at all.

5.Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C[I use a stove top oven which has no settings so am giving u'll Nags readings].

It took me exactly 25mins, But its better to check after 20mins tats what I did tats when u can smell the aroma of the cookies....
Leave it to cool for 10mins and ur crispy melting moments are ready!!

It can be stored upto 4 days...but I bet it'll all be finished by that time! :)