Eggless Tutti-Fruiti Biscuits (Karachi Bakery Style)

Karachi bakery at Hyderabad is known for its signature rich fruit & nut butter biscuits, that melt in your mouth. These biscuits are divinely delicious and very addictive too. My colleagues who visit Hyderabad, make sure to get these to office and they'd get over in a jiffy.

When I came across this recipe in Fondbites, Bake Along group, I bookmarked them and was so tempted to try them at home. I had time this weekend and tried these goodies. And the result------- No one can believe that these are homemade! The biscuit just melted in my mouth and everyone at home loved it.

The best compliment was when dad asked me "Who got them from Hyderabad?"

Warning: Try hard to control yourself or be prepared to work out hard ;-)

Eggless M&M Cookies | Eggless Gems Biscuits

It's feeling a lot like Christmas!! 

Festive season and holidays, along with fresh home baked goodies! What more do we need to excite a kid or bring back the kid in us?!

I wanted to make some colorful cookies for my little cousins who would be coming home for their vacation. While hunting my refrigerator, I found a pack of M&Ms lying there unopened. It reminded me of a recipe that I had come across in Jeyashriskitchen.com and bookmarked long back. With pretty much simple ingredients and easy method, I tried them right away and yeah the colorful cookies are now baked to perfection and waiting to surprise my little cousins!

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season :)

Check out these cookies too for this special season:

• Saffron-walnut cookies
• Custard powder cookies

Pepper and Garlic flavored eggless scones

After a series of special themed cakes, it was time to take care of myself. Yes, I've been down with cold and cough. This made me crave for pepper, garlic, honey, ginger and cinnamon. But I was in no mood to prepare something exclusive, nor did I just want to satisfy myself with a pepper-garlic rasam or a hot cup of ginger-honey tea. I wanted something special!! That too with a pleasant and cloudy weather.

Here is what I ended up making - Pepper-Garlic flavored scones and Ginger-honey choco mug cake! All done in just half an hour. Sounds good right?! Do try them out and let me know how they turned out to be.

I came across the recipe for scones in litebite.in and modified it according to my taste and ingredients available.

Saffron-Walnut Cookies

All these days I was managing my baking with a convection oven but now I am really excited to have purchased a traditional OTG oven, after consulting my mentor in baking, Mrs.Shyamala Sivaraman. Yippie!! Here is the first recipe that I tried in my new oven. I adapted the recipe from Priya's versatile recipes. The best thing about the recipe is the aroma of saffron, the divine smell just spreads all over the house! 

Whole wheat honey walnut cookies (Eggless and butterless)

 

Baking is a great stress buster. The aroma that spreads the house while baking goodies is such a wonderful feeling! Adding to that, if the recipe is a healthy cookie that can be enjoyed guilt-free, then nothing can beat it. Here is one such recipe that can be prepared easily and also in very less amount of time. Whole wheat honey walnut cookies that has no maida(refined flour), is eggless and butterless but absolutely delicious!

After the festive season, many would have received dry-fruits and nuts as gifts, so pick up the walnuts from the pack and start baking these yummy cookies right away!

Custard Powder Cookies

After a wonderful Dussera season, I am sure all of us are gearing up for Diwali :) I am planning to come up with some interesting recipes as MyCheerfulKitchen celebrates its first Diwali!!! 

Our lovely guests during Navaratri gifted us with loads of fruits and mom prepared yummy fruit custard. While I was thinking about what to do with the remaining custard powder, I came across an interesting cookie recipe in Jeyashriskitchen.com. The original recipe uses vanilla custard. You can use any flavor of your choice. I used strawberry flavor and the result was just YUMM!! This can also be a wonderful gift for Diwali. Make small cookies and pack them for your dear ones and celebrate the festival with lots of love and sweetness :)

Chocolate bourbon biscuits

We do not generally buy cream biscuits at home but when my nieces had come over, I had got them some chocolate bourbons and like any little kid, they enjoyed the chocolate fantasy! That's when I decided to try them out myself and here I come with an almost replica of the famous bourbon biscuits :) I adapted the recipe from lovefood.com

INGREDIENTS

For the biscuit:

• Unsalted Butter - 55 grams
• Powdered brown sugar - 55 grams (you could use white sugar too)
• Plain flour (Maida) - 100 grams
• Cocoa powder - 1 heaped tablespoon
• Baking soda - 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt - a pinch
• Honey - 3 teaspoons

For the cream filling:

• Icing sugar - 75 grams
• Cocoa powder - 2 teaspoons
• Unsalted Butter - 35 grams
• Vanilla extract - 1/4 teaspoon
• Boiling water - 1.5 teaspoon

METHOD

To make the biscuits:

1. Soften the butter and beat the sugar along with it, until the mixture is soft and creamy
2. Sift the dry ingredients together - flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt
3. Add the dry ingredients and honey into the butter-sugar cream and mix well
4. Form a dough by bringing the mixture together with your hands
5. Place the dough on a cling film and cover it with another cling film. Roll the dough to about 3mm thickness and place it in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes
6. Pre heat the oven to 180C
7. Take the rolled dough out of the refrigerator and cut them into small rectangles (cut them a little smaller than you wish them to be, as they would expand on baking)
8. Place them on a baking tray and poke small holes like in bourbon biscuits
9. Bake in a pre-heated oven for 10 minutes
10. Allow them to cool completely and in the meanwhile, start preparing the cream filling

To make the cream filling:

1. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder together
2. Add in the butter, vanilla extract and boiling water and beat very well till the mixture is soft and creamy

To assemble:

1. Take a spoonful of the butter cream and spread it on the bottom side of one biscuit and sandwich it with another biscuit
2. Repeat the steps for other biscuits too
3. Sprinkle little sugar on top of each biscuit

There you go!! Yummy homemade chocolate bourbons are ready :)

Note:

**The original recipe uses golden syrup and I have replaced it with honey as I had it readily available

**If you do not want a cream biscuit, you can very well omit the cream part and just enjoy them as chocolate cookies! 

Sending this recipe to the following event:

• Cooks Joy
• Anitha's Kitchen