This post is a contribution from a friend of mine, Sujata, whom I've known since I was 5 or 6 years old... many a good time was had playing pithoo (7 tiles), table tennis, cycling in our neighborhood (and running along our bicycles when it would start raining suddenly during the monsoon months - for some reason, it would make sense to get off the bicycle and run alongside, rather than just continue pedaling like before :))... she was also the only other girl in the medical institute campus we grew up in, that pursued engineering as an undergraduate degree, much like yours truly. AND, she is the queen of morphing any recipe to make it yummier than it could ever have been! I am going to rely on her to send through these nuggets ever so often, and am looking forward to trying out the Karachi cookies next weekend. But for now, here we go!
Karachi Cookies
What you'll need:
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (you can use all purpose flour if you prefer); 1/2 cup custard pd; 1 tsp baking pd
1/2 cup tutti fruitti (I skipped this because we aren’t very fond of it, so we focused on the cashews and therefore the "twist"); 1/2 cup crushed cashew nuts (I doubled this portion since i skipped on the tutti fruitti)
1/2 cup butter at room temp; 1 cup powdered sugar (I used 3/4 cup); 1 tsp vanilla extract
5-10 tblsp milk at room temp
Sift the flour, custard powder and baking powder in a mixing bowl and gently mix the tutti fruiti bits and nuts into this mixture. In a separate bowl, use an whisk or electric beater to cream the butter, sugar and vanilla extract, till it becomes nice and fluffy. Slowly fold in the flour and nuts mixture with a spatula. Make sure you don’t knead it like dough, just mix it to ensure there are no lumps. Add the milk as needed to get a cookie dough consistency. Depending on the type of flour, you may need more or less (I actually ended up using ~7 tblsp).
Now roll the dough into 2 or 3 logs, cover them with cling-wrap. Let these rest in the freezer for 15 min, or in the fridge for 2-3 hrs. Once firm, take the logs out and cut into even slices about 1/2 inch thick. Pre-heat the oven to 350F. Place the cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet, and bake for 15 minutes... you want to bake these until they are a light gold color - don’t over bake or they will become hard. After a minute take these out from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack. Once completely cooled, store them in an airtight container, but only after you've gobbled a couple of these morsels of absolute heaven! Enjoy with your cup of chai or coffee!
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