Roasted Jeera Shortbread - Cumin Biscuits


Roasted Jeera Shortbread - Cumin Biscuits - The most delicious, fragrant, buttery Shortbread studded with Jeera or Cumin. This easy recipe makes sweet, salty, crumbly and crispy shortbread that are irresistable. Perfect with a cup of Masala Chai.

 

Jeera Cookies/Cumin Cookies

A favourite Indian tea time snack, these buttery Jeera Biscuits are loved by all.

Jeera or Zeera is the Indian name for Cumin Seeds.

For this recipe, we use roasted and fragrant Jeera or cumin seeds.

The shortbread itself is buttery, light, crumbly and oh so delicious.

The most important thing with Shortbread Cookies is not to handle the dough too much otherwise the biscuits become tough.

Some recipes ask for softened Butter and other recipes suggest grating cold Butter into the dough. I prefer to use softened butter and then put the dough into the fridge.

The aim with Shortbread Cookies is to ensure that they melt-in-your-mouth and are nice and crumbly.

This version is great with Masala Chai and I like them crispy, so i bake them for longer. Perfect for an indian inspired afternoon tea with friends and family.  Or as we call it Chai Nashta.

Shortbread

Shortbread is traditionally Scottish and they are a much loved biscuits the world over.

Shortbread gets its name from its crumbly short texture.

The cause of this texture is its high fat content, provided by the butter.They also happy to be one of the easiest recipes ever with very few ingredients.

Most recipes are made up of 3 store cupboard ingredients in a ratio of 1:2:3, sugar, butter, and flour. Hre are some notes on the ingredients:

Butter - I use Salted Butter. You can use Unsalted Butter and add a good pinch of Salt to the Dough before binding.

Flour - Plain Flour or All Purpose Flour. You may have read that Shortbread Cookies should be made with a combination of Rice Flour and Plain Flour, and sometimes you see recipes with Cornflour or Semolina too.

Rice flour or fine Semolina makes the shortbread a little more tender.

If you think you might over work the dough a little, I would replace some of the flour with Rice Flour. Around a quarter is enough.

Recipes using Cornflour, suggest that it gives a nice melt in your mouth texture and it does indeed. So feel free to add a little.

Sugar - I use Caster Sugar. You can use Granulated Sugar, Demerara, Panela, Light Brown Sugar or even Icing Sugar.

Cumin Seeds - We add a tablespoon of Cumin Seeds in this recipe, which we gently roast beforehand to get the most flavour out of them as possible.

How to make Shortbread Cookies

Here’s how to make Zeera Biscuits:

Dry fry Cumin Seeds in a pan.

Combine the Sugar and Butter in a large mixing bowl and mix with a hand mixer until creamy. Mix for about a minute.

Add Flour and Cumin Seeds and mix together quickly using your hands.

Press together, squish and knead the dough on the table to form a 4 cm log.

Refrigerate for 2 hours.

Then cut into 1cm Biscuits.

Cool in the fridge, cut and place onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper/baking paper, then bake for 15-17 minutes.

Cool for 10 minutes on the tray, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

How to serve

Serve with Chai, a cup of tea or a cup of Coffee.

Storage

Store in a cool place in an airtight container for 5 -7 days.