Orange Spiced Shortbread

Shortbread is one of the easiest biscuits you can make, it only uses three main ingredients and you can flavour it in any which way you like such as chocolate, herbs and flowers too. For some lovely ideas why not try these Finnish Shortbread or Chocolate Shortbread.
Did you know that you can even add chilli to your shortbread, check out this chilli shortbread to find out how. To make shortbread rich you can even add clotted cream and make these clotted cream shortbread. I also love lemon drizzle cake.

I have added christmassy flavours to my shortbread by adding orange zest, cinnamon and honey. My kitchen smelt heavenly whilst I was making them. I also love making Snowflake lemon shortbread for christmas as I am a big fan of citrus flavours.Do check out these delicious Easy Vegan Orange & vanilla protein bites

To make the shortbread, making the dough in a good sized bowl such as the Mason and Cash mixing bowl makes life easy, it's a perfect accompaniment in my kitchen for all my baking tasks together with the generous sized wooden utensils too.

Yield: Makes 18

Author: Nayna Kanabar

Orange Spiced Shortbread Biscuits

Crumbly melt in the mouth orange and cinnamon spiced shortbread.

prep time: 20 Mcook time: 20 Mrest time: 20 Mtotal time: 60 M

Ingredients:

• 180 g plain flour
• 125 g butter
• 60 g caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar for sprinkling.
• 1/3 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoonful orange zest
• 1 tablespoon thyme honey

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/375 F
2. Cream together the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
3. Add the orange zest, cinnamon powder, honey and sieve in the flour.
4. Without overworking bring the mixture together.
5. Get a baking tray and pat out the mixture onto it to form a 12x6 inch rectangle that is 1 cm thick. Alternatively you can roll out the dough and cut it with cookie cutters.
6. Sprinkle caster sugar over the dough and using a ruler score the dough to make eighteen 3 inch by 1 inch fingers
7. Place the tray in the fridge to chill for 15 minutes.
8. Bake the short bread after its chilled for 15-20 mins until slightly golden brown.
9. Cut the shortbread whilst its hot on the score lines. Remove from baking tray onto a wire rack.

Created using The Recipes Generator

** In collaboration with Mason & Cash

Eggless Cashew and Pistachio Cookies.

It's great fun being part of the Recipe swap group in facebook where like minded food bloggers join forces and create a recipe from their allocated partners blog. It's a great way to make new friends and discover new  recipes from around the world. For the July challenge recipe swap,  I was allocated  Pavani's  blog  -Pavanis Kitchen . Looking through the blog I found many lovely recipes. I finally settled for Eggless Cashew and Pistachio cookies as I was having friends for tea and wanted to  serve home baked cookies. 

 The  only changes I made was that I added 1/2 teaspoon of rose essence to the dough, recipe turned out absolutely delicious. Since I used whole wheat flour, the cookies had a slight texture in them, which I liked but you can make the cookies using plain flour too. You can also make cookies with oats, I love these Vegan Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

The cookies went really well with  Jasmine tea and the flavours complimented each other beautifully. I also made chocolate chip cookies and Spiral cookies to serve at the tea party.

Yield: 30 bitesize

Author: Nayna Kanabar

Eggless Pistachio and Cashew cookies

Delicious nutty cookies that melt in the mouth with middle eastern flavours of cashew, pistachio and rose.

prep time: 10 Mcook time: 12 Mtotal time: 22 M

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup salted butter
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon cardamom powder
• 2 tablespoons custard powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon rose essence
• 3 tablespoons chopped pistachios
• 3 tablespoons chopped cashews
• 4 tablespoons Milk  or as required.

Instructions:

 

1. In a large bowl add the butter and sugar and cream together.
2. In the same bowl sift the flour, custard powder, baking powder and cardamom powder.
3. Gently bring all the ingredients with a sausage shape and wrap it up in cling film.
4. Place the dough in the fridge for two hours.
5. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
6. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
7. Remove dough from the fridge and using a sharp knife cut it into 5 mm  discs.
8. Place them onto a baking tray and bake in the pre heated oven for 10-12 minutes.
9. The cookies should be golden in colour.
10. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

NOTES:

NB- Allow 2 hours chilling time.

Created using The Recipes Generator

Don't forget to check out the other recipes from this month's Food Blogger Recipe Swap!

• Potatoes Pies with Mango Chutney
• Cold Brew Coffee
• Eggless Cashew & Pistacchio Cookies
• Apple Pomegranate & Pear Salad
• Coriander Thokku
• Classic Lemon Curd
• Indo-Chinese Carrot Soup
• Chocolate Tea
• Fruit Custard

Bakar Khani ~ Sweet Puff Pastry Biscuits from Pakistan

I love cookery books, not only do I like cooking from them but I like reading them from cover to cover. I admire the beautiful photos and imagine the author creating all the wonderful dishes in far away places. I own many recipe books but my most favorite ones are those that tell a story and take you back to the roots.

Mountain Berries & Desert Spice by Sumayya Usmani is one book that I totally fell in love with even before I had opened the front page. I loved the beautiful bold orange and pink cover with a paisley intricate flowery design. I immediately wanted to touch the book and peer at what it contained.

When I  looked at the book, I can say I was totally thrilled with the content. The book has recipes that are inspired from the Hunza Valley to the Arabian Sea. The book has authentic Pakistani sweet and dessert recipes using amazing spices and Eastern flavours. The desserts are very lavish and beautifully captured.

Included in the book is a chapter explaining all the authentic ingredients used in the recipes which is extremely helpful for those who are creating the recipes for the first time and are new to the ingredients. The book takes you on a sweet and aromatic journey through mouth watering desserts.

There are so many recipes that I want to make from the book such as the Pakistani Jalebis which are crunchy spirals dipped in a sugar syrup. The Qawwami Seviyan, a roasted vermicelli topped with nuts and Bakar Khani which is a sweet puff pastry biscuit. I finally started with the Bakar Khani, you can see my recreation below which was made with a few minor changes from the original recipe .

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Bakar Khani (Sweet Puff Pastry Biscuits)

by Nayna Kanabar July-26-2017

Sweet Puff Pastry Biscuits with nuts and poppy seeds

Ingredients:

• 1 sheet (320 g) Ready to Roll Puff Pastry
• 2 tablespoons Caster Sugar
• 60 g Pistachio, almonds and cashew nuts (coarsely ground)
• 1/2 teaspoon Ground Cardamom
• 1 tablespoon Milk
• 2 tablespoons Butter (melted)
• 1 tablespoon Poppy Seeds

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F 2. In bowl add the nuts, cardamom powder and sugar and mix together well.3. On a lightly floured surface unroll the puff pastry and smooth it out.4. Brush the pastry with the melted butter and sprinkle the chopped nut mixture on top.5. Roll up the pastry from the long side and make a swiss roll shape.Secure the end by pressing the pastry down with your finger, so that the biscuits don't unravel whilst cooking.6. Cut the pastry swiss roll into 1 cm thick rounds and place them on a grease baking tray.7. Using your fingers apply pressure to the outer edges of the discs to flatten them slightly to thin them so that when baking the centre of the biscuit rises to form a dome shape.8. Brush the biscuits with some milk using a brush and sprinkle them with poppy seeds. 9. Bake in a pre heated oven for 18-20 minutes, until the biscuits are a light golden brown in colour. 

Details

Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 20 mins Total time: 40 mins Yield: 16

The original recipe did not have nuts in it , that was my personal addition. The Bakar Khani, turned out delicious and they were really flaky and delicious served with a cup of strong Arabic coffee. You can store them in an airtight container for up to a week.

I totally loved the book and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes Eastern desserts.

Book Details :
Mountain Berries & Desert Spice Book  by Sumayya Usmani
ISBN978-0-7112-3852-7
Retails  £20.00

My score for the book: 14/15 this is a high score but the book is definitely worthy of it.

Content -5/5
Illustrations-5/5
Recipe Instructions-4/5

 I was sent a copy of the book to review as always all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookies ~A tribute to Isabella -Coriander Queen

I have been blogging for almost 8 years and over this time I have read many blogs and made numerous friends in the blogging world. Luckily, I have had the opportunity to meet some of these blogger friends in person and others I know them virtually through their blogs. One such person was Isabella who wrote the blog Coriander Queen. Her blog has a varied collection of recipes, all captured beautifully on camera too. I have followed Isabellas' blog for a long time, although I had never met her in person, I felt I knew her from her work. Sadly in March she passed away after a long illness. The blogging community are saddened by such devastating news and will miss her tremendously in the blogosphere. We all wanted to do something special to remember her by, so an idea emerged to take inspiration from her recipes and recreate them as a tribute.

I have chosen her Eggless Chocolate Cocoa Cookies recipe and have remade it with minor changes. You can find the original recipe here. Please do check the linky at the bottom of this post for all the other recipes.

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

by Nayna Kanabar April  23-2017

Delicious Chocolate cookies with white chocolate chunks and pecans.




Ingredients:

• 115 g Self raising flour
• 85 g granulated sugar
• 115 g butter
• Pinch of salt
• 30 g birds custard powder
• 1 tablespoon Milk
• 30 g Cocoa Powder
• 1 bar 100 g White chocolate cut into chunks
• 12 Pecans roughly chopped (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. 2. Grease two baking trays with butter and keep aside. 3.In  a bowl sieve together the flour, cocoa powder and the custard powder and keep aside. 4.Cream together the sugar and butter and then add the flour and make a dough, only add the milk if the mixture will not come together. Add the chopped white chocolate chunks and pecans.5.Roll out walnut sized balls from the cookie dough and place them on the greased baking tray, making sure you keep plenty of space between them as they will spread whilst baking.6.There is no need to flatten the balls they will spread during baking.7. Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes and remove from the oven, leave them to cool on the trays. Do not over bake the cookies, as they will firm up when they cool.

Details:

Prep time: 15 mins Cooking time: 15 mins Total time:30 mins   Yield: 22 cookies

To see what recipes the other bloggers have made see below:

• Easy 5 ingredient pesto tomato tart on Amuse Your Bouche (vegetarian)
• Globe artichoke with balsamic dip on Natural Kitchen Adventures (vegan)
• Cider, apple and sausage casserole on Farmersgirl Kitchen
• Chocolate orange oat bars on Veggie Desserts (vegan)
• Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies on Tin and Thyme (vegetarian)
• Arancini (risotto balls) on Coffee & Vanilla (vegetarian)
• Rich coffee cupcakes on BakingQueen74 (vegetarian)
• Gingerbread cupcakes with orange buttercream on The Veg Space (vegan)
• Marmalade and ginger loaf cake on The Crafty Larder (vegetarian)
• Ginger and oat cookies on Kavey Eats (vegetarian)
• Amatriciana pasta on Kitchen Sanctuary Treacle tart on Patisserie Makes Perfect (vegetarian)
• Crispy fried halloumi on Supper In The Suburbs (vegetarian)
• Chocolate fridge cake on Jo's Kitchen (vegetarian)
• Chocolate almond butter cookies on Rough Measures (vegetarian)
• Eggless chocolate chip cookies on Simply Sensational Food (vegetarian)
• Boozy decadent hot chocolate on Fab Food 4 All (vegetarian)
• Easy no bake blackberry cheesecakes on Casa Costello (vegetarian)
• Best coriander / cilantro recipes on Fuss Free Flavours (some vegetarian)
• Easy gingerbread popcorn snack on Celery & Cupcakes (vegetarian)
• Elderflower and vodka cocktail slush on The Hedgecombers (vegetarian)
• Fruit flapjacks on The Petite Cook (vegan)
• Tomato, garlic and prawn spaghetti on Hungry Healthy Happy (pesceaterian)
• Lemon drizzle loaf cake on Penne For Your Thoughts (vegetarian)
• Chicken ramen on It's Not Easy Being Greedy
• Stuffed Nutella cookies on Munchies And Munchkins (vegetarian)
• Easy Berry Compote on Eats Amazing (vegetarian)
• Caipirinha on Lovely Appetite (vegetarian)
• Garlic and Lime Coriander Prawns on Travels for Tatse (pesceaterian)

You can also click on this linky to add your posts and also take you to the relevant posts.

Iced Cardamom and Saffron Biscuits

I have been following the Great British Bake Off and last week was week two where the theme was Biscuits.The participants made Viennese whirls, iced biscuits and also ginger bread creations. I was totally taken with the iced biscuits and have created my own Ice cream shaped Asian flavour inspired biscuits.
These ice cream shaped iced biscuits have the perfect crisp break and taste simply delicious with the Asian inspired flavours of cardamom and saffron.

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Iced Cardamom and Saffron Biscuits

by Nayna Kanabar September-6-2016

Asian inspired iced biscuits with Cardamom and Saffron flavours.

Ingredients:

• 240g Plain flour
• 120g Sugar
• 120g Butter (room temperature)
• 60ml Milk
• 1/2 teaspoon Saffron strands
• 3/4 teaspoon Cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda
• 90g Icing Sugar
• Few drops Brown and Pink food colour
• 2 tablespoons Water
• 1 tablespoon Coloured hundreds and thousands

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C2. Add the butter and sugar to the bowl of the Nutri Ninja and switch it on. Cream the mixture until its light and fluffy.3. Warm the milk up in the microwave for 30 seconds and add the saffron strands and leave aside to infuse.4. In a bowl sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda.Add the cardamom powder to the flour.5. Add the flour to the creamed butter and slowly add the saffron infused milk. Add a little at a time until the dough is formed.6. Remove the dough from the Nutri Ninja and leave aside to rest for 15 minutes.7. On a floured surface roll out the biscuits to 3 mm thickness and cut out ice cream cone shapes using the cookie cutter.8.Gently lift the biscuits one at a time and place them on a baking tray. Cut out all the biscuits and bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.9. Take the biscuits out of the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes. Then transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool completely.10. In a bowl sift the icing sugar and add a few drops of water to make a thick icing.11.Divide the icing into two bowls, colour one part brown and the other part pink.

12. Fill a piping bag with the brown icing and pipe the bottom of the cone with a brown outline. Fill in the outline with brown icing.Leave to set for few minutes.13. Fill a piping bag with pink icing and pipe the top of the ice cream cone with an outline of pink icing. Flood the centre of the outline with the pink icing and leave to set.14. Sprinkle some coloured hundreds and thousands on top of the pink icing for decoration.

Details

Prep time: 45 mins Cook time: 15 mins Total time: 1 hour Yield: 24

 

I used the Ninja Kitchen System with Nutri Ninja to make my biscuit dough. The Ninja®Complete Kitchen System with Nutri Ninja® is a power machine that incorporates three appliances, a food processor, high speed blender and a nutrient extractor. Its 1,500 watt of power  is perfect for all kitchen tasks such as mixing, blending, kneading,chopping and whipping.

I am delighted to have this addition to my kitchen as its going to be very handy whilst I create some exciting challenges inspired by the GBBO.

Submitting this to :

Great Bloggers Bake Off with Jenny from Mummy Mishaps.

Cookie bars~Secret recipe club challenge 15th June

Secret recipe club

This is my assignment with the Secret Recipe Club.The aim of the club is that you are allocated a blog from which you have to select a recipe and try it and blog about it. For the month of June my assigned blog The Painted Apron by Jenna Meon .Jenna is an artist nad you can see the creativity in her blog posts.I really enjoyed browsing through all the recipes but I fell in love with the heaven in a cookie bar recipe, and immediately decided to make that. The only changes I made were that I drizzled some white chocolate and added smarties to the cookie bars .

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Cookie Bars

by Nayna Kanabar June-15-2015

Delicious melt in the mouth cookies that will leave you wanting more and more.

Ingredients

• 2 cups Plain Flour
• 3/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 10 tablespoons Melted butter
• 2 cups Light brown sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 tablespoon Vanilla Essence
• 12 oz Chocolate chip
• 1/4 cup Flaked Almons
• 4 oz White chocolate chips
• 1 handful Smarties

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/180 degrees C2.Line a 9x12 baking tray with grease proof paper.3. In a bowl sieve together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt.4. In another bowl add the vanilla, melted butter, eggs and sugar and whisk together.5. Stir in the chocolate chips and almonds into the flour mixture and add the wet ingredients to it.6. Mix together the ingredients and spread them into the prepared baking tray.7. Bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes until slightly brown, do not over bake cookies should be chewy in the center. Remove tray from oven and leave to cool.8. Melt some white chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave. Fill a icing bag with the melted white chocolate and drizzle some white chocolate over the cookie bake. For additional touch sprinkle some smarties over the bake and leave the chocolate to set. 9. Once set, cut the cookies into squares and transfer to a serving dish.

Details

Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 20 mins Total time: 35 mins Yield: 20 small bars

An InLinkz Link-up

Submitting to:
Lets cook for DAD event by simplyfood

White Chocolate Chip Orange Cookies ~Secret recipe challenge 18th May 2015

This is my assignment with the Secret Recipe Club.The aim of the club is that you are allocated a blog from which you have to select a recipe and try it and blog about it. For the month of May my assigned blog was The pajama chef written by Sarah who is a librarian and has a passion for baking. She claims that  she would happily wear pajamas 24/7 I guess that's got something to do why the blog is called The Pajama Chef.

I was browsing through the recipes and immediately fell in love with the Chocolate Chip Orange cookies. The only changes I made were that I used white chocolate chips instead of brown as I accidently picked up the wrong ones whilst shopping. The cookies turned out delicious and I am going to make them again very soon.My work colleagues said three dozen were not enough when I took them to work!!!!

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White Chocolate Chip and Orange Cookies

by Nayna Kanabar May-18-2015

Fragrant orange scented white chocolate chip cookies that melt in the mouth.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup White Sugar
• 1 cup Butter
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla essence
• 2 teaspoons Orange Juice
• 1 tablespoon Orange zest
• 3 1/4 cup Plain Flour
• 2 teaspoons Baking Soda
• 2 cups White chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C /350 degrees F and line 6 cookie sheets with parchment paper.2. Cream together the butter and sugar, add the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla essence, orange juice, orange zest, baking soda and flour and chocolate chips. Mix together to form a dough.Cover and chill for half an hour.3. Scoop small walnut sized balls from the dough and place them on the baking trays making sure they are spread apart as they will spread when baking. Slightly flatten each ball with your fingers.4. Bake the cookies in a preheated oven for 12-15 minutes until golden brown, remove them from oven and transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

Details

Prep time: 30 mins Cook time: 15 mins Total time: 45 mins Yield: 3 dozen

An InLinkz Link-up

Pistachio and Rose Biscuits~ sugar free

Pistachio and rose a match made in heaven. These delicious biscuits are not only pretty to look at they are totally sugar free. The sugar added to them is the Natvia sugar which is plant based and made from the stevia plant. Its 100 % natural with no artificial colours or flavorings, its low in carbs, tooth friendly and fructose free too with no bitter after taste.

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Pistachio and Rose Biscuits

by Nayna Kanabar May-3-2015

Delicious pistachio biscuits with a lovely rose scented icing.

Ingredients:

• 480g / 16oz Plain flour
• 240g / 8oz Salted butter at room temperature
• 240g / 8oz Natvia natural sugar
• 90g / 3oz Pistachio
• 1 level teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda
• 60 ml Milk
For the icing:
• 2-3 drops Pink food colouring
• 90g /3 oz Natvia Icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon Rose Essence
• 1 -2 teaspoons water( as required)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C / 350 degrees F2.In the mixing bowl add the softened butter and natvia sugar and cream it together. Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the milk little at a time and form a dough. Cover and leave the dough to rest for 30 minutes.3.Thinly slice the pistachios and reserve a third for garnish.4. Add the remaining 2/3 of pistachio slices to the dough and knead them in.5. Dust some flour on the surface and roll out the biscuits to 5mm thickness. Cut out the biscuits to the desired shape and transfer them to baking trays.Repeat for all the dough.6.Bake the biscuits in the preheated oven for 10 -15 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and transfer them to a wire rack to cool.7. In a bowl add the Natvia icing sugar, add the pink food colouring and the rose essence and a few drops of water to make a thick icing.8. Lay the biscuits on tray and drizzle some pink rose icing onto each biscuit, alternatively fill a piping bag with the rose icing and drizzle some lines of icing on the biscuits. In the center garnish with a few pistachio slices.9.Leave the icing to set before eating.

Details

Prep time: 30 mins Cook time: 20 mins Total time: 50 mins Yield: 48 biscuits

I was sent samples on the Natvia sugars to try , all the views and opinions in this post are my own. I found that the baking sugar was really good and worked well in the recipe, however the icing sugar formed a very grainy icing and it was difficult to pipe with it so I don't think it would be suitable for a big icing project although it was ok for small cookies and icing cupcakes. We also tried the sugar in tea, coffee and cereal, the sugars tasted fine and we did not get any after tastes so they are a perfect substitution for recipes that require sugar.We will definitely make the change to this healthy sugar.






I also made a peach Frappe and used natvia sugar to sweeten it you can see the recipe here.