Khara Biscuit

Khara Biscuit (Spicy wheat cookies) have always been one of my favorite cookies since childhood. This cookie is available in almost all bakeries in India. The iyenger bakeries in India are very famous for their spicy cookies. In the past I have baked these biscuits using all purpose flour * they have turned out very good. However this time I wanted to make them a little healthier, so that I would eat more:). These whole wheat cookies are very very tasty. This is a keeper & will definitely make them often. This is how I made them.

Makes: 20 medium size cookie
Making time: 20 mins
Baking time: 15 mins
Freeze time : 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour (Pastry flour & not the atta flour)
• 1 tspn Baking powder
• 1/2 tspn baking soda
• 1/2 tspn salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 stick Butter (113 gms)
• Handful of chopped curry leaves
• 2 tspn Chili powder
• 1 Tspn cumin seeds
• 1 green chili finely chopped
• 1/2 cup ice cold water
• some flour for dusting

Method:

1. Sieve the flour, baking powder, soda & set aside. Cut the cold Butter into small cubes
2. In a bowl add in sifted flour along with salt, sugar, chili powder, curry leaves & green chilis.
3. Now ad din the cold butter cubes to this flour mixture & massage it with your fingers. The butter has to get well mixed with the flour & should looks like bread crumbs.
4. Now add in cold water little by little to form a dough. Once the dough is formed, wrap it with a cling wrap & freeze it in the freezer for an hour.
5. After an hour, remove the dough out & roll it to 2 inch thickness. Now cut it with a cookie cutter to any shape you want. You might need to dust the surface with some flour before rolling the dough.
6. Now line the cookies on a parchment paper & bake it in a preheated oven at 350 F for about 10 - 15 mins. Some ovens might take 20 mins.
7. Once they are baked remove them & allow them to cool down.
8. Once cooled, store it in a air tight container or bottle.

Note:

1. The wheat flour used here is a pastry flour & not the chapathi atta. I brought a whole wheat flour from HEB. This flour is not as smooth as the plain flour. This coarseness in the flour makes the cookie crispy & gives a great texture.
2. Local Bakeries generally add a lot of green chilies but I have used very few & compensated it with chili powder. If you want you can add more green chili's.
3. My cookies were not very spicy but just the way I wanted.
4. Don't over bake your cookies. 15 mins is more than enough. The cookie will be still soft to the touch but will harden up once its cooled. Just incase you feel you have under baked your cookies, don't panic! Just put them again in the oven for another 5 mins & they are done.
5. These cookies are not gooey chewy like chocolate chip cookies. The texture is more or less like a sugar cookie