If you grew up in Chennai, you have definitely enjoyed a butter biscuit or nei (ghee) biscuit! These are little white macaroon like cookies. I tried one not too long ago at Archana's, her butter biscuits made me nostalgic and I have been wanting to make them myself ever since. I came across a very simple recipe on ramyacooks, this one uses oil instead of butter.
Butter Biscuits
by Ramya @ ramyacooks
Ingredients:
All-purpose flour - 1 cup
Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp
Salt - 1 pinch
Confectioner's sugar - 3/4 cup
Canola Oil - 3/8 cup (1/2 of a 3/4 cup)
I followed Ramya's recipe exactly, the proportions above are 1/2 of her quantity.
Preheat the oven at 350 F and have a cookie sheet greased and ready. Mix flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl, add the sugar and mix and slowly pour the oil and combine to make a very loose dough. You will see that the dough is crumbly and lumpy, that's how it should be!
Make small balls that look like coconut macaroons with a slightly flattened bottom. You wouldn't have to roll the dough with your palms, it will be more like collecting the crumbles and gathering and gently pressing them together to form small balls. Now, arrange these on the cookie sheet and bake for about 10-11 minutes. Keep looking for cracks to form on the cookies, once that happens pull them out after about a minute and place the sheet on a cooling rack, let it cool for about 15-20 minutes and they are ready to eat. The cookies harden after you pull them out. The final product is a powdery top (you will feel the pastiness when you touch the cookie on top), a golden base with a nice crisp bite!
The original recipe says that you begin to see cracks on the cookies at 9 minutes but I didn't see any till about 13 minutes. I pulled the cookies out at 15 minutes and let them cool. They tasted great but I think they were a tiny bit hard so for next time, I will go with the original recipe, 11 minutes it is :)
For next time, I might also try the Ghee Biscuit aka Melt-In Mouth cookies :)
we call them naan khataais :-) look yummy, Anu. You gotta mail some of these!
ReplyDeleteThey look very perfect Anu :) and thanks for your feedback :)
ReplyDeleteSinfully good!!! :)
ReplyDeleteTried the 'Nei' version and twas yummmeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....Thanks Anuja.....
Thank you all. Hema, the "nei" post is coming soon!
ReplyDeleteWhy are they called butter cookies if you don't use any butter?
ReplyDeleteThey are called "butter biscuits with oil". "butter biscuit" is a common, well known and popular snack in Chennai but this recipe uses oil instead so I kept the name so readers would know it is a modified version of the original butter biscuit!
ReplyDelete