All-purpose flour (use the unbleached kind), butter, light brown sugar and milk come together in this delightful shortbread cookie recipe that is very easy to bake, without needing any fancy ingredients. Beware though – these shortbread cookies are highly addictive!
Ingredients (makes approximately 30 large cookies):
- All Purpose Flour (Maida) (2 cups)
- Brown Sugar (3/4 cup)
- Salt (1/2 tsp)
- Unsalted Butter (1/2 cup)
- Baking Powder (1/4 tsp)
- Vanilla Essence (3/4 tsp)
- Milk (8-10 tbsp or as needed to make a stiff dough)
Method:
- In a mixing bowl, add flour, salt and baking powder. Mix well.
- In another tall bowl, whip the butter and sugar until well mixed.
- Add flour mixture and vanilla essence to the butter-sugar mixture, and mix well.
- Now slowly add milk, little by little, until a stiff dough (like bread or roti/chapati dough) is formed. Cover the dough and refrigerate it for half an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Sprinkle some flour on your work surface and start rolling the dough using a rolling pin to a thickness of 1/2 cm or so.
- Using a cookie cutter or a lid, cut out the cookies of desired shapes from the dough. Poke some holes into them and place them on a cookie sheet.
- Bake for 20 minutes or so (the time may vary depending on the thickness of your cookie. So, it will be a good idea to keep checking after every 5 minutes and also flipping the cookies at that time).
- Cool for 10 minutes or so and then save in an airtight container.
Tastes (Rasa):
Sweet (flour, butter, milk, sugar), sour (none), salty (salt), bitter (vanilla extract), pungent (none), astringent (none).
Doshic Influence:
Overall, this dessert has kapha aggravating qualities, in excess. Active kids and adults may enjoy this in moderation, without any guilt. Kapha type of people can add some pungent spice in addition to the vanilla extract (like cinnamon or dried ginger) to offset some of the kaphaness.