Sunday, 27 May 2012

The First Derivative

Everytime Marc and I travel to Mittagong, we stop on the highway to take a break. Everytime we are there we purchase pistachio biscuits from a man with a huge truck. As dodgy as it sounds, they normally don't taste half bad and seeing as I don't generally like pistachio flavoured things, I was desperate to find a biscuit more suited to me. Thankfully, someone seemed to have read my mind and I stumbled upon Mehan's kitchen, who definately knows how to make a good cookie. 


So here I present Chai Biscuits. As I am watching Eurovision, I have to comment, they go perfectly with Chai tea (or any other tea for that matter) 






Chai Biscuits (adapted from Mehan's kitchen, you can find it here, I have made a bit of my changes in it but no drastic changes) 


You will need: 
- 90 grams of almond meal (this saves the whole mashing up the nuts yourself. Alternatively, you may food process this yourself)
- 30 grams of food processed toasted pecans
- 250 grams of unsalted butter 
- 5 tablespoons of caster sugar
- 2 cups of flour 
- 1 tablespoon of vanilla essence 
- 1/1/2 teaspoons of ground ginger, clove and cademom. 


Here's the how-to: 
1. If you haven't ground the nuts, grind them so that they are relatively fine. Preheat the oven to about 180 degrees Cel fan forced. 
2. Cream the butter and add slowly add in 4 tablespoons of sugar and continue till pale and creamy. 
3. Add in the flour, vanilla and nuts and use your hand to mix it into the butter. 
4. Once well combined, sprinkle in the ground ginger, clove and cardemom. Depending on your tastes you can add/subtract it as you like. 
5. Line a baking tray with baking paper and roll the mixture into small balls approx. 2cm wide and place them on the tray. When you're done, pop them in the oven for about 20 min. (you may need it more or less depending how big they are)
6. With the remaining tablespoon of sugar, put it into a small ball and roll the biscuits in whilst still warm. If you do like your sugar, roll the biscuits in the sugar again when cooled. 




Enjoy them, I shall continue eating mine and watching Eurovision. GO IRELAND AND RUSSIA.