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Recipe: Spiced For The Season – Indian Spice Biscuits

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I suppose that biscuits were originally an English concept, known as cookies in the USA and popular across the world. Here in India, we do have our own versions and adaptations. Take for instance the nan kattai, which I shared my own pistachio-rose rendition of a few festive seasons ago. It is believed to have been created by Dutch bakers in 16th century Gujarat. Similarly, all over India today, little bakeries utilize millets and Indian flavours to make their own biscuits, giving us treats like ragi cookies. All these inspirations put together made me decide to bake Indian spice biscuits, and to share the recipe with you too.

I feel that Indians give a lot of importance to spices in general, and this is in part because many of them grow in India and are either native or at least traditional in this part of the world. They hold a very special place in our cooking, which is why they appear in everything from meats to sweets. Nutmeg, mace, saffron, cardamom and cinnamon come to mind as common elements. I’ve chosen to use a few of these to flavour these biscuits.

It is the beginning of the festive season this year, and of culinary indulgences, so I thought this would be the perfect time to share this recipe. These biscuits go well with the mood and the weather, and are ideal to have at tea time. If you are seeking more recipes in this vein to serve at your special occasions, the archive has lots to offer.

Another reason why I chose to try out a new biscuit is because I realised that I love hoarding props. I have quite a large collection in my kitchen, and I wanted to use some of my cookie cutters out of that array.

Strictly speaking, it’s not really a new biscuit for me, just one I haven’t made in some time. When my daughter was living here, we often baked together, and this recipe was one of our usual choices. It was so lovely having her company, with her young mind and her penchant for ideas and innovations. Baking these made me miss her, and I think I will send her a care package with these home-baked Indian spice biscuits.

Baking also makes me miss my mother. As I have mentioned in numerous posts over the years, she attended a baking class when we were growing up, and this meant that we had all kinds of interesting treats at home. For instance, she made cornflake cookies, dipping the dough in cornflakes before baking. At a time when cornflakes themselves were an unusual concept for us, we were fascinated by these. I remember plucking the cornflakes and eating them separately. I remain deeply inspired by my childhood memories of my mother in the kitchen.

I hope these Indian spice biscuits become a part of many more happy memories – for my loved ones and I, and for you and yours.

Indian Spice Biscuits

(Yield: Approximately 20 pieces)

175 grams unsalted butter

75 grams powdered sugar (sifted)

55 grams custard powder

175 grams flour

¼ teaspoon cardamom powder

½ teaspoon cinnamon powder

8-10 strands of saffron

1 teaspoon milk

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

 

Preheat the oven to 170°.

Meanwhile, in a small cup, add the saffron and the milk and allow to steep.

Line a baking tray with a silicone mat. Set aside.

With an electric beater, beat the butter until light and fluffy. To this, add the sugar and then the custard powder.

Beat gently, and now add all the spices. Sift the flour and baking powder and add it to the mixture.

Mix gently using your hands. Cling wrap the dough and refrigerate for 5-10 minutes.

With the help of a spoon, or using your hands, make small discs of the dough. Place them apart on the prepared tray.

Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes or until the edges are golden.

Remove and cool on a wire rack before consuming.

These delicious biscuits have a beautiful flavour to them, one that I am sure will pep up your mood in the late afternoon. You may notice that they are also eggless, which makes them ideal for serving vegetarians. Here’s wishing you a wonderful festive season ahead!

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Recipe: Of Canteens and Bakeries – Butter Biscuits

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Butter biscuits were a bakery-made phenomenon for most families I knew when I was growing up. At that time, there were very few commercial brands on the market (with the exception of Parle-G and Marie) and even then, our little down-the-road bakers were the only ones most of us got our non-homemade confectionery and snacks from. No fancy names or special ingredients: just straightforward, reliably good biscuits that all of us school-going kids enjoyed. When my mother took a baking class, which was considered an unusual hobby at the time, she learned how to make butter biscuits too. I loved the way she made them – crispy, with a distinct flavour and taste. She taught me how to bake them the same way, and that recipe is the very same one I am sharing with you today.

My mother’s biscuits were just a little different from my neighbourhood bakery’s biscuits, and these in turn were just a little different from my college canteen’s biscuits too, as I’ll tell you about in a moment. Even when the recipe is the same, the hands that knead the dough always impart something unique. Every person who tries this recipe out will create their own version, imbued with some distinct signature. It’s just something that happens when it comes to baking, or indeed cooking of any kind.

Now, about those butter biscuits that were available at my college canteen: they were a mainstay of my undergraduate experience. Classes began at 7.30am and went on till 2pm, which meant that all of us students were much in need of a snack by the time our break came. We would rush down to the canteen and devour the butter biscuits they sold. These would be kept in a glass jar, from which they would be retrieved without gloves, and were usually split and shared. School and college feel like a simpler world, in which there was a sense of unity somehow. We all opened each others’ tiffin boxes, no one ever went hungry no matter how little she may have brought or have been able to afford, and we all seemed to have robust constitutions despite the lack of hygiene protocols we insist on now.

Those butter biscuits were among the many daily enjoyments we shared. We were mostly coffee drinkers by then, having reached young adulthood, and we’d enjoy our break times with coffee, butter biscuits, whatever was in our home-brought containers and lots of camaraderie before running back to class. Our coffee back then was plain South Indian filter coffee, too. There were no fancy variations available then, but just like this classic butter biscuit that we still return to even today, that traditional and common beverage is still the perfect pick-me-up for many of us.

 

I was a Fine Arts student and as soon as I graduated, I found a job at an advertising agency. In those days, nothing was computerized as yet, and we did all the work by hand. I was a designer, and I recall long hours of poring over my table, painstakingly creating ads for different companies. Break times were as much-awaited as they had been during college, and my colleagues and I would send one of the office assistants down the road to a local shop that had some fabulous butter biscuits. We would enjoy these with our coffee or tea before putting our thinking caps back on and getting back to our clients’ briefs. Like many young women of my generation, I left that job when I got engaged. In fact, my family had been against me going to work at all, but I had not wanted to stay at home and just wait to get married. I had enjoyed putting the skills I gained in college to good use, even if I was compensated only with a stipend of just Rs350 a month, which just about covered my bus fare! When I told my boss that I was quitting, he must have realised my value as an employee, for he offered to raise my stipend to a salary of Rs3000 a month. This was a princely sum in those days, but life had other plans for me, and while I left my designing career behind back then, my experience in the visual arts has certainly influenced my career as a photographer. Sometimes, when I shoot for a client, I recall that very first job as a fresh graduate with a smile.

In the present day, it’s my own butter biscuits that are my go-to whenever I take a break. I prepare them for my family all the time, and we relish them over tea. They’ve followed me through all these stages of my life, baked by various people along the way – each just a little different, with some slight change in the technique or the ingredients or simply the baker’s touch reflecting in the final taste. This one has a little hint of salt, and that’s one of the elements that I think makes it distinct for me.

This recipe I am sharing today may seem very familiar to you too. It’s a basic one with basic ingredients, and this is what I like about it. It’s the kind of snack that almost everyone would have had at some point in their life. Perhaps your own fond memories of butter biscuits and bakeries past will be evoked when you whip a batch up in your own kitchen! I’d love to hear about your reminiscences in the comments, and I hope you’ll share them.

Butter Biscuits

(Yield: Approximately 15 small biscuits)

 

100 grams unsalted butter

60 grams finely powdered sugar

120 grams maida

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy. Aerating the mixture makes for softer biscuits.

Once the mixture is fluffy, add the remaining ingredients and mix well with your hands.

Cover in cling film and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes.

Make rolls with the dough. Flatten slightly. I used a mound to press the individual dough rolls in, to give them a pretty look.

Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes or until the biscuits turn slightly golden at the edges. They may appear partly white, but don’t worry. They will not be under done.

Transfer onto a wire mesh and allow to cool before you enjoy them.

How will you have them: as an accompaniment to tea or coffee, or on their own? I’d love to know. No matter how many snack companies line the supermarket shelves today, there’s nothing like a simple butter biscuit, freshly made. I wouldn’t be surprised if the delicious aroma of these butter biscuits fills your own kitchen on a regular basis soon!

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Recipe: Festively Flavourful – Pistachio & Rose Nan Khatai

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When we were growing up, our mother once decided to take a Western baking class to expand her repertoire in the kitchen. As children, we adored the pastries, cakes and short eats our mother learned to bake there. In those days, embarking on such a class was considered quite unusual and therefore very progressive in Chennai, and in other parts of India. In the hill stations, there would always be families who had learned recipes from the British chefs, so they knew how to bake. In the cities, Western food was available only at clubs, and made by chefs who themselves would have studied under foreigners. For an average homemaker to go out and educate herself in Western cooking was a rare thing. Now, thinking back on how uncommon it was, I admire her all the more.

Mum was always very curious. She always wanted to know how food had been prepared, and never felt any embarrassment about enquiring on the same. She would just ask nicely, and people were often forthcoming about how a particular dish was made. In this way, she picked up a wide range of recipes, and became a master in the kitchen. I’m sure that this trait is something I’ve inherited from her, and I am always eager to keep learning, just as she did.

Our mother attending this baking course opened up so many snacking and celebration possibilities for us. There, she learned not only Western-style cakes and pastries, but various other types of baked goods as well. Among them was nan khatai, a kind of shortbread biscuit that originated in the Indian subcontinent. Nan khatai has an especially interesting story behind it. It is believed that a Dutch couple ran a bakery in 16th century Surat, a Gujarati seaport which had many traders and expats. This establishment was inherited by a Parsi gentleman when the Dutch left the country, but he found no takers for their cakes and bakes. To his surprise, the locals seemed to enjoy the dried, old bread most of all. The legend is that he decided to simply sell dried bread, which gave rise to this particular recipe. A similar biscuit is eaten in Afghanistan and Iran, where it is known as kulcha-e-khatai.

I remember carrying boxes of nan khatai on the train whenever I visited cousins or relatives, homemade gifts from my mother. I enjoy continuing the tradition of taking homemade dishes as gifts when I visit friends nowadays.

This nan khatai is neither Surat-style, nor what my mother was taught at her baking class, nor her own improvisation (the original uses wheat flour; she added a bit of besan or chickpea to hers). It is, of course, re:store-style – loaded with delicious flavours I love to use in the kitchen. Soft and crisp at the same time, this pistachio and rose nan khatai a real treat. Its fusion of cultures and influences makes me feel it’s ideal for an Indian Christmas. As an eggless baked treat, it’s also perfect for vegetarians.

 

Pistachio & Rose Nan Khatai

(Yield: 25 pieces)

100 grams powdered sugar

80 grams ghee (clarified butter) at room temperature

100 grams maida

25 grams pistachio meal

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons semolina

60 grams chickpea flour (besan)

½ teaspoon cardamom powder

A few strands of saffron, soaked in 1 teaspoon rose water

2 teaspoons yoghurt

½ teaspoon pistachio extract

Rose water (if required)

 

Pre-heat the oven to 160°C.

Add all the dry ingredients together, sift and set aside.

With a hand blender, beat the ghee and sugar together until the mixture is light and fluffy. Now add the yoghurt, pistachio extract and saffron. Mix gently.

Next, add the dry ingredients to the mixture. Use your hands to bring it all together. It will be a soft dough. If required, add 1 teaspoon of rose water to bind it better.

In a baking tray, lay out small rolls of the dough and top each with a slice of pistachio. Make sure there is space between the rolls to give them room to bloom. Bake for approximately 15 minutes, depending on the oven type.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Your re:store-style nan khatai is ready to serve, just in time for the year-end festivities! This Western-but-Asian biscuit is delightful with tea. Isn’t it amazing how much history and how many cultures one little biscuit can contain? Aromatic thanks to the rose water and extra crunchy thanks to the pistachio, I am sure you’ll find it as addictive as I do. Here’s wishing you and your family a wonderful Christmas. I hope a batch of pistachio and rose nan khatai will be baking in your oven soon – let me know what you think of it!

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