Wheat Biscuits | Atta Biscuits

Wheat Biscuits, a crunchy mildly sweetened tea biscuits. It's one of the easiest biscuits to make in minutes with basic ingredients from the pantry. Ever since ST started working from home, i have been baking a lot of tea time snacks. In the past, a pack of store bought cookies would last for at least a month since we had tea time together only on weekends. 

But nowadays, all the snacks would happen to disappear like anything. So to keep it on the healthier side, i prefer homemade cookies so  experimenting a lot on cookies that go well with tea/chai and this wheat/aata biscuits is one of my successful bakes. It's very mildly sweetened and perfect for tea time. 

Years back, when we first returned from the US to India, we had no idea whether we're coming back or not, so i had bought a few things and one among them was 100 pieces of cookie cutter.  Unfortunately to this day, never get a chance to use them once.

Still having it safely somewhere in the loft at our place in India, one of the cons of moving frequently. Now that i'm baking cookies/biscuits a lot, looking for some cookie cutter set but still haven't found one to my liking.,so as of now i'm making only rectangular and round cookies :-) But you can use the cookie cutter for this cookies and cut into your favorite shapes. 

Ok, coming back to the recipe, here in the recipe i have used aata flour/ Indian wheat flour to make these biscuits, but i had tried these biscuits with whole wheat flour(that are available here in US/Canada local store) before, it also turned out good. So use whichever you prefer. Now let's check out how to make these delicious aata/wheat biscuits.  

Wheat Biscuits | Aata Biscuits

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 15 mins | Serves : 20 small biscuits 
Recipe Category: Biscuits | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Wheat Biscuits, Aata Biscuits, Cookies, Tea Biscuits, Indian Biscuits Wheat Biscuits, a crunchy mildly sweetened tea biscuits. It's one of the easiest biscuits to make in minutes with basic ingredients from the pantry.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Wheat flour/Atta - 3/4 cup
Powdered Sugar - 1/4 cup
Butter - 1/4 cup
Milk - 1 to 2  tbsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Baking soda - 1/4 tsp
Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp

Procedure

Preheat the oven at 350 F. Take butter(should be at room temperature) and sugar in a bowl and whisk it well.

Next sieve the flour, salt, baking soda and cardamom powder into the butter and sugar mixture. Mix it well with your hand until it looks like a crumble.

Add a tbsp of milk at a time and make a soft dough. Transfer the dough on to the parchment paper.

Roll the dough into 1/4 inch thickness and cut into round shape using cutter or  use any lid like me.Gently transfer into the parchment lined baking tray. 

Prick the holes on the cookies using tooth pick and place the baking tray at the oven and bake it @350F for 15-18 mins.  

Once baked, the biscuits starts to get brown on the sides and on the back of the biscuits. Transfer the biscuits on to the wire rack and let it cool completely. Instead of rolling and cutting the dough using cookie cutter, you can simple make a small balls out of the dough and bake it like the last pic below.

Tasty and healthy Wheat Biscuits are ready !! Once it's completely cooled, store it in the airtight container to maintain crispiness. 

For more baking recipes, check out here.

Notes:

• Powdered sugar incorporate with the butter easily and quickly.
• No need to refrigerate the dough, you can bake them once the dough is ready
• Instead of cardamon powder, you can use vanilla extract also.

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Shortbread Cookies | Easy Cookie Recipe

Shortbread Cookies, a rich buttery delicious, melt in mouth cookies !!! It's a  traditional Scottish cookies made from butter, flour & sugar and it's named so because of its crumbly texture not stretchy or chewy. Unlike many cookie recipe, shortbread cookies doesn't have any leavening agent like baking soda or powder. Still they are so light, crumbly and utterly delicious cookies !!! Instead of butter, shortenings are also used in the recipe, but i would highly recommend to use butter for great flavor.  

When i heard the name short bread cookies for the first time, i was wondered what is it ??So,.

What is short bread cookies and how is it different from butter cookies??

Actually there is no difference between those two in terms of ingredients. The main difference is,  in short bread cookies, the sugar is comparatively less compared to  the butter cookies. It makes them crumbly and melt in mouth texture.

Next is baking temperature, short bread cookies are baked at lower temperature to retain its pale color. Where as butter cookies are baked at little higher temperature and also the extra sugar sugar in butter cookies give those dark colors because of caramelization. 

Couple of year ago, bought a pack of french cookies from costco, we both liked it a lot. It's rich buttery cookies with moderate sweet and a hint of salt  and we used to buy them whenever we were there, after a while, guess costco stopped to carry them. As these cookies has a hint of salt in it, ST always say that these cookies are so similar to it every time he had a bite. Adding salt in this cookies is optional but highly recommend because it gives a nice kick!! 

But for me, it reminds me of the butter biscuits that are available in bakery shop around Tamilnadu, India. Those bakery biscuits are quite different from the regular biscuits, they are super crumbly and melt in mouth texture.  

I'm not sure how they are made but these short bread cookies tastes so similar to them. Guess, it's similar recipe but different name in different place !!! As we both like these cookies a lot, i have been baking these cookies a lot during this lockdown. Now let's check out on how to make this delicious cookies.

Butter Cookies | Butter Biscuits

Preparation Time : 1 hr | Cooking Time : 10 mins | Serves : 12 
Recipe Category: Cookies | Recipe Cuisine: Scotland
cookies, easy cookies, short bread cookies, christmas cookies, basic cookies,scottish cookies Shortbread Cookies, a rich buttery delicious, melt in mouth cookies !!! It's a traditional Scottish cookies made from butter, flour & sugar and it's named so because of its crumbly texture not stretchy or chewy.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Butter - 5 tbsp
All Purpose Flour/Maida - 3/4 cup
Icing Sugar - 1/4 cup
Vanilla extract - 1/4 tsp
Salt -1/4 tsp
* see notes section at the end for all FAQ

Procedure

Take the room temperature butter in a bowl and whisk it for 2 mins and then add sugar & vanilla extract.

Again whisk it well until all combined together. Next add the flour and salt. 

Mix it with your hands well until it all comes together as single mass(if the dough is dry and doesn't come together at this stage, add a couple of tsp of milk). Transfer the cookie dough into cling wrap and shape it as rectangular block. 

Cover it well and refrigerate for 1 hr. Preheat the oven @ 350 F & Line the baking tray with parchment paper and keep it ready. Take the cookie dough from the refrigerator.

With sharp knife cut into 1/4 inch pieces. Place them on the baking tray.

With wooden stick poke some holes on each cookie. Place it on the preheated oven and bake it for 10-12 mins. Turn the cookie tray one time in between.

Remove from the oven and let it cool a bit and then transfer into wire rack to cool completely.
Once it's completely cooled. Store it in airtight container. 

If you want chocolate covered cookies, melt about 1/2 cup of chocolate chips(you can use milk chocolate, semi-sweet or dark chocolate as per your liking, i have used semi-sweet chocolate) in a double boiler method or in microwave until it's all melted. Then dip each cookie in the melted chocolate and place it on the parchment paper. If you want any sprinkles, just add it immediately so it sticks to the chocolate well. Let it sit for an hour or until the chocolate sets ! 

For more baking recipe, check out here

As i baked the below batch for the school bake sale, i have added some colourful sprinkles :-)

Notes:

• Instead of making rectangular shape, you can cut into any shape using cookie cutter.
• Make sure to use the butter at room temperature.
• Icing sugar helps to give the smooth texture.
• Cookies firm up when it's completely cooled down. 
• It stays well for a week at room temperature. 
• Keep the dough at refrigerator helps to cut them nicely. 
• To make icing sugar at home, for 1 cup of sugar add 1 tbsp of corn starch and grind into super fine powder and use the required quantity in the recipe.
• Here i have used unbleached all purpose flour.
  
  
  

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