Spelt Cardamom Biscuit
Finally a recipe on this blog!
I haven’t been cooking much but I do have a recipe for fennel-celery soup that I must write about… easy, summery, light and delicious. Soon, soon.
A biscuit is a biscuit, and a cookie is a cookie… Never the twain shall meet? A biscuit is what a cookie is called in Britain and India, I suppose? Here in the South (and probably most of the United States), a biscuit is a whole another beast. Or baked goodie. This Wikipedia link explains what the two kinds of biscuits are.
Anyhow, I took Desert Candy’s recipe for Kleeja (Wheat-Cardamom Cookies), played with the ingredients and baking time, and made it my own new favorite biscuit recipe.
Mildly sweet, delicately flavored, hearty, sturdy, perfect for dunking… I like this one!
Kleeja (adapted from Desert Candy’s recipe here)
Ingredients
3 cups of spelt flour
1/2 cup of olive oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 egg beaten (I use Ener-G egg replacer)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cardamom
Preset oven to 350 F. Combine the sugar and milk into a little saucepan, turn on the heat, stir without boiling until sugar dissolves. Place aside to cool.
Combine flour, salt, baking powder and cardamom in a bowl. Mix well. Add oil and mix until well combined and crumbly in texture. Add egg replacer, then the sugar-milk mixture, and mix until a dough is formed. Set aside to rest for 15 minutes.
Roll out the dough with a thick rolling pin. You will not need to grease the work surface since this is a fairly oily dough. Cut out rounds with a sharp little lid or a biscuit cutter.
Transfer the little rounds to a baking sheet (with a parchment paper on top), bake for 15-16 minutes or until the bottoms are lightly browned.
Let cool on a rack.
Spelt Cardamom Biscuit
Notes
This is a delicious biscuit! The delicate scent of cardamom is unmistakable. It is the perfect foil to the heartiness of the spelt. I thought that the olive oil (the original recipe uses butter or vegetable oil) adds a certain lightness in texture and taste. This is a mildly sweet biscuit, perfect for dunking in chai/coffee. My dough turned out fairly oily, so I think I will cut back on the oil next time I make these.