Indian Sugee cookies

      Today marks Deepavali in Singapore. Deepavali, or Diwali, is a Hindu celebration. You can Google it to find out the customs and traditions surrounding this day but in my memory, Deepavali is the biggest celebration of the year. My family celebrated Christmas on a small scale but Deepavali was the one day that we prepared for every year. Of course the festivities dwindled down as my brother and I got older, but it still brings back fond memories. We would 'spring-clean' the house, buy new Indian clothes, cookies and goodies leading up to Deepavali and visit relatives' houses on the day.
   
      There would always be food in the houses that we visited, lots and lots of food. There was also lots of biscuits. Some were traditional, some weren't. It was customary to leave an assortment of cookies on the coffee table for visiting guests to help themselves. We would also give some cookies to some of our neighbours to share the good spirit of the occasion.
   
      One cookie that I always loved is called Sugee Cookies. 'Sugee' (or 'sugi') is used to refer to semolina in North India. In South India, this is more commonly referred to as 'rava' or 'rawa'. Semolina is used in some recipes for this type of cookie but I opted for a recipe that uses only wheat flour. Sugee cookies are balls of buttery goodness that crumble and melt in your mouth. Some people make it too crispy, which results in an almost non-existent 'melty' mouthfeel. That just spoils the beauty of these cookies. They are meant to be like a pale, crumbly shortbread. They have characteristic cracks on the tops, which are caused by the addition of baking soda in the dough.

      I have missed Deepavali in Singapore for 2 years. Naturally, I missed Sugee Cookies. I tried looking for the essential ingredient here in The Netherlands last year but had no success. Through the year, I found several shops selling this ingredient so I told myself I would bake these cookies these year. And I did. EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has tried these cookies that I baked has been wowed. 

      Anyway, what's this essential ingredient? Ghee, also known as clarified butter. This is sold in metal tins from Asian or Indian grocery stores. It is used widely in the preparation of a dizzying number of Indian dishes ranging from curries to desserts. Ghee does not smell very appealing in the tin, but releases a wonderful aroma and flavour when heated. It might look weird to you, but the flavour of it is very rich even in tiny amounts. The fact that I am saying this is not to be taken lightly because I am a person who uses as little fat as I can get away with when I'm cooking. It also has a higher smoking point than butter so it can be used at higher heat ranges.

     So, if you want to make these cookies you will have to hunt for Ghee. Without ghee, you might as well just bake a plain 'ol English shortbread cookie. This is an easy recipe with only a few ingredients so it's hard to go wrong. The golden rule of Sugee Cookies is that they have to be pale-coloured, not browned. If they are browned, they become crispy instead of crumbly. I have provided a scaled-down recipe here. However since there are no eggs used, it is easy to double, triple, or quadruple the recipe!

Sugee Cookies

makes approximately 50

135g ghee

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

250g plain flour (all purpose)

1 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)

85g powdered sugar (icing sugar)

1/3 tsp fine salt

food colouring (optional)

1. Scoop the ghee into a bowl

2. Melt the ghee on your stovetop or microwave. If using a microwave, check the ghee every 30 seconds to prevent splattering.

3. Leave the ghee to cool for a while then add the vanilla essence to the ghee.

4. Sift the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt into a bowl.

5. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture, then pour the ghee in.

*You can use the remaining melted ghee in the bowl to grease your baking tray

6. Mix and knead to form a soft dough. The dough will be slightly crumbly.

7. Split the dough between two bowls so that you can work with a small amount of dough each time.

8. Place the bowls in the fridge to chill the dough for 20 to 30 minutes. This will make it easier to shape the balls of cookies.

9. Preheat your oven to 170°C. Line and lightly grease a baking sheet.

10. Now take one bowl of dough out of the fridge and shape into small balls. Each ball should be no bigger than 2cm in diameter. Use the other bowl of dough when you have finished working with the first bowl.

*I have found that the best way to shape the balls is to pinch a small portion off the crumbly dough, place the portion on the palm of my left hand, then use my right hand to pinch the dough into one piece, and lastly, roll it between both palms to make a ball. Sounds tedious but it really isn't!

11. You can use the back of a toothpick to put little dots of food colouring on the middle of each cookie. Just dip the end of the toothpick in the food colouring and gently dot the colour onto the cookie. This is purely aesthetic, so it is completely optional.

12. Place the little balls, spaced apart, on your baking sheet. Bake for approximately 15 to 20 minutes. This depends on your oven. But the cookies are meant to look milky and pale, not brown.

13. Remove from the oven, leave to cool then store in airtight containers for up to 3 weeks.

      Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy! Now enjoy your addictive, melt-in-mouth cookies!

Better-for-you Peanut Butter Cookies

     I bought a jar of peanut butter a few days ago because I needed a tablespoon of it for something. I love peanut butter, but it has to be the right kind. It is easy to go wrong with peanut butter (too salty or too sweet) and this jar that I bought wasn't the kind that I would keep spooning into my mouth. I knew it would just sit in my pantry looking desolate, so I thought of making peanut butter cookies.

     Peanut butter cookies are not my favourite thing in the world. Actually I wouldn't even say that I like them very much; but maybe I've only had greasy, butter-laden artery-cloggers that were too chewy. I looked up recipes and was quite horrified and puzzled as to why people would use butter AND peanut butter in the same recipe. Peanut butter has a high fat content so surely that provides sufficient fat in baking recipes...? I don't know. I'm not a food scientist.

     I did find a recipe that used only four ingredients: peanut butter, sugar, egg and baking powder. However, even that didn't satisfy me so I played around with the proportions of the ingredients and ended up having to add an extra ingredient to it: flour. The result is a cookie that is lower in sugar because I halved the amount of sugar used. You can add an extra tablespoon or so of sugar if you want your cookies sweeter. This recipe will give you crispy cookies with slightly chewy middles. That's just the way I like it! The cookies can burn quickly so please watch the oven while the cookies are baking.

Small-sized

Peanut Butter Cookies

makes 24 small cookies or 8 large cookies

1 large egg

1/2 cup white sugar

120g peanut butter*

40g self-raising flour (approx 1/4 cup)

1/4 tsp baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 175°C. Line 2 large cookie sheets with lightly greased baking paper.

2. Put the flour and baking powder in a small bowl and whisk to combine.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg and sugar together for 1 minute.

4. Add the peanut butter to the egg/sugar mixture and whisk to combine.

5. Lastly, tip the flour in and mix well.

The batter will have the consistency of thick honey

6. Drop the batter onto the cookie sheet by teaspoonfuls or tablespoonfuls, depending on the size of cookies that you want.

 Be sure to leave space between each cookie to accommodate spreading! 

1-inch space around each cookie should be sufficient.

7. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes (timing depends on your oven), until the edges of the cookies are medium-brown.

8. Remove from oven, leave to cool on the baking sheet for a 5 to 10 minutes, then lift the cookies onto a cooling rack.

Large-sized

These cookies can be stored for 3 days in an airtight container.
*To measure 120g of peanut butter, put the jar of peanut butter on a digital weighing scale, set the tare to 0g then spoon out 120g. Easy!

The large sized cookies make a great base for a dessert. This was my creation for a girls' night in dessert: Peanut butter cookie topped with Banana-only 'Ice Cream', with a smaller peanut putter cookie on top!