Basic Biscuits Or Cookies
Basic Biscuits
Mamta Gupta
This is the basic, egg-free recipe for biscuits. You can make additions like raisins, chopped nuts, seeds etc. to the dough, decorate with icing, dip in chocolate or sandwich 2 biscuits together with icing etc. etc. You can replace 50 gm. of flour with cocoa powder. These are easy biscuits to make, so you can involve children in cooking them. Makes approximately 30 average size biscuits.
Edited December 2011
Ingredients
75-100 gm. caster sugar (you can reduce the amount)
150-200 gm. softened butter
300 gm. plain flour (or mix 250 gm. plain flour and 50 gm. whole wheat/chapatti flour)
A baking tray. If you have a silicone sheet, it stops biscuits from sticking to the tray
Instructions
Switch oven on to 180?C / 350?F/Gas mark 4.
Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and cream together using an electric whisk or a wooden spatula, until the mix turns lighter in colour and look fluffy.
Sift in the flour on top. Bring mixture together with a spatula and then your hands and make a smooth dough.
How to shape the biscuits: 1 Divide the dough into 2 and roll each portion into a cylinder of about 1 1/2 inch diameter. Cut slices into biscuits shapes. 2. Roll the dough out to 3 mm. thickness and then use different shaped cutters to make biscuits. 3. You can also break off the dough into walnut-size balls, flatten them into circles.
Place them slightly apart on a baking tray/sheet. They expand a little during baking and will merge into each other if you do not leave space.
Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until they are a light golden brown and slightly firm on top. They firm up more as they cool.
Carefully transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool.
Keep in an airtight container.
