Add the Cumin Seeds to a dry pan and toast gently on medium/low for 30 seconds or until fragrant.
Mix the butter and icing sugar together in a large bowl.
Add the flour and cumin to the bowl. Use your hands to bring it together into a smooth ball of dough but don't over handle!
Roll roughly into a log shape, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
Preheat oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4 and line a oven tray with baking paper.
Remove from the fridge and cut into rounds, then place on the tray.
Bake for 15 - 20 minutes until edges are very light golden and most of the surface is still pale gold.
Notes
Rice flour or fine semolina are thought to make 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 but otherwise I don't think rice flour makes a huge difference.
Recipes using cornflour, suggest that it gives a nice melt in your mouth texture and it does but I prefer my shortbread without it. You can replace some of the plain flour in this recipe with it though.
I like to use icing sugar in shortbread because the grains are finer so you get a smoother finish on the surface. Also icing sugar is about 1/2 the sweetness of sugar by volume. The icing sugar can be caster or golden caster sugar.
Cumin Seeds can burn very quickly so keep a close eye on them and remove them off the stove when they become fragrant.
There are a few different methods you can adopt when making shortbread. You can use a food processor, you can rub the butter into the flour, you can cream the butter first etc. In this recipe I cream the butter and sugar together first and then add the flour. You can of course try the other methods if you wish.
Total time is based on baking time only.
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