While I occasionally like to end on savoury, my heart will always live in the sweet territory….Though I love my sweet something at the end of the day…sometimes I do crave for savoury!! After baking Pistachio Cardamom Cookies and Cranberry Orange Walnut Bread, it’s time to bake some savoury stuff. So, I decided to go with this easy and quick Eggless Jeera Biscuits Recipe or Cumin Cookies.
These Jeera biscuits are typical Indian bakery style biscuits that have a distinctive mix of sweet and salty taste, which is not overpowering the earthy sweetness of cumin and brings out a lovely warm flavour along with a spice kick due to chillies. These cookies are ideal to nibble with your afternoon tea.
These cookies are so easy to make and are eggless. For Eggless Jeera Biscuits Recipe, the ingredients are mixed and the dough is refrigerated for about 30 minutes, then rolled, cut into desired shapes and finally baked for about 15 minutes. Cool them on a wire rack and they are ready!! No other special baking techniques involved. To make these cookies crispy, bake them for a longer time. I baked till the edges were slight golden brown in colour. Not a fan of crispy cookies? And you want them to be on the softer side, then bake them for less amount of time.
Cumin is one of the most widely used spices in Indian food preparation. It has a warm flavour and a strong pungent aroma. For a different flavour, the cumin seeds can be easily replaced by caraway seeds in this Eggless Jeera Biscuits Recipe. The freshly baked Jeera Biscuits taste heavenly and you can also add some chilli (or even crushed black pepper) for an extra spice kick along with cumin seeds.
Off to Eggless Jeera Biscuits Recipe!!
Step-by-Step process to make Eggless Jeera Biscuits Recipe:
- In the steel bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
- Stir in the flour and salt.
- Dry roast a tablespoon of cumin seeds till a slight aroma comes and set aside. Take care not to burn them.
- Add ¾ tablespoon of cumin seeds to the butter, sugar and flour and mix. Reserve the remaining cumin seeds to sprinkle on top of the cookies.
- Add 1-2 finely chopped fresh chillies (optional). I’m using fresh red chilli for this recipe but you can also use green.
- If required add 1-2 tablespoons of milk and mix till the dough comes together.
- Flatten and shape the dough like a flat disc, cover it in a plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Sprinkle some flour on a flat surface and place the dough. Sprinkle the flattened dough with the remaining roasted cumin seeds. Using a roller, roll the dough to ¼ inch thickness.
- Cut into desired shapes using a cookie cutter. If you don’t have a cookie cutter, just use any lid of a decent size of a cookie.
- Place the cookies on a baking tray lined with a parchment paper and bake at 180 degree C (350 F) for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, reduce the temperature to 165 degree C (325 F) and bake the cookies again for 5-6 minutes or till light they are golden brown from sides and also from the bottom.
- Place on wire rack to cool completely.
- Store the cookies in an airtight container.
- Serve cookies with a hot cup of coffee or tea..!!
A Quick Summary:
Eggless Jeera Biscuits Recipe | Cumin Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- ¼ cup Sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons All Purpose Flour
- 1 Tablespoon Cumin Seeds divided
- 1-2 Fresh Green or Red Chillies Optional
- 1-2 tablespoons milk only if required to make the dough
Instructions
- Dry roast cumin seeds till a slight aroma comes and set aside.
- In the steel bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Stir in the flour and salt.
- Add ¾ tablespoon of cumin seeds, chopped chillies and mix. Reserve the remaining cumin seeds to sprinkle on top of the cookies.
- If required add a tablespoon of milk and mix till the dough comes together.
- Cover the dough in a plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven at 180 degree C (350 F).
- Sprinkle some flour on a flat surface.
- Using a roller, roll the dough to ¼ inch thickness. Sprinkle remaining cumin seeds.
- Cut into desired shapes using a cookie cutter.
- Place the cookies on a baking tray lined with a parchment paper and bake at 180 degree C (350 F) for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, reduce the temperature to 165 degree C (325 F) and bake the cookies again for 5-6 minutes or till light they are golden brown from the sides and bottom.
- Place on wire rack to cool completely.
- Store the cookies in an airtight container.
My Notes:
- If you don’t like to bite into whole cumin in the cookies, you can gently crush them and add to the cookie dough.
- Adding chilli to the dough is optional, include only if you want to have spicy cookies. For another variation, you can add crushed pepper instead of chilli.
- The baking time varies with each oven. Also based on the thickness of the slices the baking time will vary.
- You may use 50% whole wheat flour and 50% all-purpose flour for crispier biscuits.
- You can cut down the sugar and increase the salt if you want the cookies to be more salty. This worked out perfect to our taste.
- I used very small cookie cutter and ended up with 30 cookies, If you are using a bigger cutter, you might only get less number of cookies out of this dough.
- The cookies will be slightly soft when taken out of the oven. They will get the right texture on cooling down.
Check out other BAKING RECIPES you can make this Christmas and enjoy with your family!!
Many more to come!!…..STAY TUNED!!
Hungry for more? Never miss a recipe!!…Subscribe to MasalaKorb and have posts delivered straight to your inbox! And connect with me on Facebook, Google, Twitter and Pinterest for all of the latest updates.
Happy Cooking 🙂
Cheers!!
Padma.
