Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

Plain flour - 2 ½ cups
Baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Salt
Ginger powder – 2 tbsp
Cinnamon powder – 2 tsp
Black pepper powder – ½ tsp
Butter - 11 tbsp
Brown sugar - 2/3 cup
Vanilla essence - ½ tsp
Molasses – ¼ cup
Egg - 1 large
Zest of 1 lemon
Lemon juice - 1 tsp

Preparation

Sieve flour and baking powder together.
Add cinnamon, ginger and black pepper powder.

Beat egg and molasses (jaggery), lemon juice and zest.
Now add cold butter, vanilla essence and powdered brown sugar.
Into this add the flour mixture.
Mix well. Keep on a plastic paper and roll it into a log.
Keep this plastic wrapped log into the fridge until firm.
Slice thin to about quarter an inch, coat it with sugar and bake
for 15 minutes. Take it out and turn each ginger snaps
upside down and let it cool.

Store in an air-tight cookie jar.
Plain milk and cookies is a good combination.
Spicy ginger snaps and half a cup of hot plain milk
is a combination even I would like to vote for.

Butter Cookies (Nankatai)

Diwali is a festival of lights and sweets.
This Nankatai will surely add a distinct flavour to your
Diwali this year.
Many times my friends call up and ask for some easy recipes;
Here is an easy one…..

Ingredients

Flour (maida) – 1 ½ cups
Unsalted butter - 1 cup
Sugar _ 1 cup
Crushed Cardamom - ½ tsp
Pistachios to garnish

Preparation

Powder sugar and keep aside.
Take out butter from the fridge.
See that the butter does not melt.
As the butter reaches the correct
temperature to kneed with the flour,
mix well all the ingredients
into a smooth dough.
Roll this into small lemon size balls.
Press these balls gently one by one
in your palm; do not press it flat.
Keep a pista piece on each cookie.

In hot and humid climate ,
if you keep butter for long in
room temperature it melts and
you will have to add more flour.
which will make your cookies more hard.

Pre-heat oven at 180 degrees C for 10 minutes.
Place the nankatai in a pan; no need to grease the pan;
There shall be space between two cookies as it tends to
expand while baking.

Now, keep the pan with the butter cookies in the oven
for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, take out the pan and slowly overturn the
Cookies to cool.
Store the cookies air-tight in a cookie jar.