Cheese Crackers

This is an easy recipe adapted from divinetaste.org

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups packed cheddar cheese, grated
• 1/4 tsp red chilli powder (Adjust to taste)
• 1 tsp salt (Adjust to taste)

Method:

1. In a large bowl, add all the ingredients and mix them well into a pliable dough.
2. Divide the dough into 2 equal halves and roll the dough into a log and wrap them with parchment paper. Chill the logs for 10 min in the freezer
3. Unwrap the chilled dough and cut into 1/4” rounds. Place them on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Bake in a preheated oven at 350F for 10 to 12 minutes or until browned at the edges.

Shortbread Cookies

I am a fan of the Scottish Shortbread cookies and wanted to try them at home and the result was awesome. Make sure you use the best, tastiest butter as that is the main ingredient here, responsible for the taste.

Ingredients

• 1 cup All Purpose Flour
• A pinch of Salt
• 1/2 cup Butter at room temperature
• 1/4 cup powdered Sugar
• 1/2 tsp pure Vanilla extract

Method

1. In a bowl beat the butter until soft and creamy. Add the Sugar, salt and vanilla extract and beat the ingredients till smooth. Stir in the flour and make a soft dough.
2. You can make small balls of the dough or if you want to use the cookie cutter to shape the cookies, flatten the dough into a disc shape and cover it with a parchment paper and freeze it for 10 min. Then flatten the dough with a rolling pin to 1/4" thickness and use the cookie cutter to cut the cookies.
3. Preheat the oven to 350F and line the cookie sheet with the parchment paper.
4. Place the cookies on the cookie sheet and bake them at 350F for 10 min. These cookies will not brown much, so when the edges/ the bottom side turn a golden brown, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool.
5. Yummy shortbread cookies ready to eat!!!

No-Bake Biscuit Brownie

This is a fabulous recipe with no cooking involved and with only very simple ingredients. This recipe adapted from edible garden makes around 15 small brownies.

Ingredients

• 22 Marie biscuits
• 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup roasted nut of choice (I used chopped Almonds)
• 1 tsp sugar (Adjust to taste)
• 7oz/ 200gm condensed milk

Method

1. Break the biscuits and crush them by hand or with a pestle. Alternately you may coarsely grind it in a blender.
2. Add the cocoa powder and sugar to it and mix well.
3. Add the nuts and the condensed milk and mix well to form into a dough.
4. Grease a baking tray with butter or line it with parchment paper and transfer the mixture to it.
5. It will be sticky, so press firmly and level it with clean wet fingers and refrigerate it for around 4 - 5 hours or overnight.
6. Slice the brownie into cubes with a knife and serve!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

The Chocolate Chip Cookie is America's most famous cookie as it was invented here. The original recipe uses eggs, so this is my eggless version below and they are just as awesome.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1/2 cup Butter (at room temperature)
• 1/4 cup White Sugar
• 1/2 cup packed Brown Sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 
• 3 teaspoons oil   
• 4 teaspoons hot water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or Any nuts of choice)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Mix the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar in a bowl until smooth.
3. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add this to the bowl with salt and mix well.
4. Stir in the Flour, chocolate chips, and nuts.
5. Mix everything well and Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto a baking tray.
6. Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges turn brown.

Variations

1. You may replace All purpose flour with Whole Wheat Flour to make it a healthier snack.

Whole Wheat Classic

This recipe is a variation of the Classic cookies but with Whole Wheat flour.

Ingredients

• 1 cup - Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/2 cup - Sugar
• 1/2 cup - Ghee
• A pinch of Cardamom powder
• 1/4 cup - Cashews/Almonds/Any Nuts of choice (Optional)

Method

1. Add the Whole Wheat flour, sugar, cardamom, ghee and nuts (if you are adding nuts) into a mixing bowl and combine the ingredients to make a dough.
2. Pinch off small bits of the dough, shape it into a small ball and flatten it slightly and transfer it to a baking tray. (I also added an almond on top of all cookies.)
3. Preheat the oven to 350F and bake the cookies for around 10 minutes or till the bottom of the cookies are slightly golden in colour.
4. Transfer the cookies from baking tray to a wire rack and cool.

Suggestions/ Notes :

1. When you take the cookie out of the baking tray it may crumble as they are extremely soft till they are completely cooled. Hence use caution while transferring the cookies to the wire rack.

Fruit and Nut Cookies

I love the Karachi biscuits that is very famous in Hyderabad and wanted to try a similar cookie, so here we go for the delicious fruit and nut cookies recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Maida/ All purpose flour
• 1/2 cup Butter (at room temperature)
• 1/2 cup powdered Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Rose water
• 1/4 tsp Cardamom powder
• 1/4 cup Tutti frutti
• 1/4 cup Cashew finely chopped

Method

1. Mix the Maida, butter, sugar, rose water and cardamom powder to form a dough.

2. Divide the dough into two portions.

3. Flatten one portion of the dough into a 1/4" thick square on a parchment paper/ wax paper and spread half the tutti fruiti and half the cashews on the dough as shown below

4. Spread the remaining portion of the dough on top and add the remaining tutti fruiti and cashews on top.

5. Cover this with another wax paper or parchment paper and freeze it for 10 min.

6. In the meantime preheat the oven to 350F or 180C.

7. Remove the dough from the freezer and slice them into squares and bake them for 10 min or till the bottom of the cookies are golden brown.

8. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and cool them and then store in an airtight container.

Classic Cookies

The Butter cookies that we get in the Bakery are my favourite and I always wanted to make them at home. But they are made of Vanaspathi/ Dalda and I didn't want to use that, so I replaced it with Ghee. They are extremely easy to make and very tasty too. My daughter loves them a lot and she calls them snow cookies!!

Ingredients 

• 2 cups - Maida / All Purpose Flour
• 1 cup - Sugar
• 1 cup - Ghee
• 1/2 cup - Cashews/Almonds/Any Nuts of choice (Optional)  

Method 

1. Add Maida, sugar, ghee and the nuts (if you are adding nuts) into a mixing bowl and combine the ingredients to make a dough.
2. Make small balls of the dough and flatten it slightly and transfer it to a baking tray.
3. Preheat the oven to 350F and bake the cookies for around 10 minutes or till the bottom of the cookies are slightly golden in colour.
4. Transfer the cookies from baking tray to a wire rack and cool.  

Suggestions/ Notes :

1. When you take the cookie out of the baking tray it may crumble as they are extremely soft till they are completely cooled. Hence use caution while transferring the cookies to the wire rack.
2. You may add 1 tsp cornflour so that the cookies will not be so soft and crumbly but a little on the crunchy side.
3. You may also replace ghee with soft butter at room temperature and that will taste good too.

Sending this recipe to the event: Any One Can Cook: Series 43