Thandai Cookies

Recipe: Thandai Cookies

Thandai Cookies are buttery, delicate, and beautifully floral, with just the right amount of warm spice. The unique flavour comes from aromatic thandai masala, a fragrant blend of nuts, seeds, spices, and floral notes that makes these cookies irresistibly delicious.. Easy to make, these cookies are ideal not only for Holi celebrations but can be enjoyed any time with a cup of masala tea or coffee.

Memories

Holi has become such a colourful and joyful celebration in many Gujarati communities in Kenya, with colours, pichkaris, water balloons, delicious food and cool drinks. Growing up, I had never even heard of Holi. My first experience was at school in Mt. Abu when I was unexpectedly hit by a water-filled balloon—and I can still remember how much it hurt!  Back then, the balloons were filled with plain water; today, coloured water has become part of the fun. I don’t remember Holi being celebrated specially at home when I was growing up. After I got married and moved to Mombasa, Holi celebrations were still not something most families or communities organized. Over the years, Indian television brought the many beautiful festivals of India into our homes. As people watched these celebrations, more families began embracing festivals such as Holi and turning them into wonderful community celebrations. And what better way to celebrate Holi than with something delicious?

Why Bake Thandai Cookies?

Firstly, it is great for gifting during the Holi Festival. I bake a huge batch a few days before Holi to gift it to neighbours, friends and family.

Unlike Indian Sweets or mithai, which after the festivities no one wants to eat, cookies are enjoyed with a cup of tea, coffee or milk.

While make Indian Sweets do not stay fresh for a long time, these cookies stay fresh for over 2 weeks.

Makes an excellent dessert variety for Holi parties.

After the Holi season, any thandai masala or spice mixture leftover is used up to bake unique flavoured cookies.

Our host for this Sunday is Karen who blogs at Karen’s Kitchen Stories. She suggested we share a recipe for cookies. And who doesn’t like home baked cookies? I decided to redo a very old post – Thandai Cookies. The recipe was first posted on 16/03/2016. It definitely needed better photos. And this time round I opted to dip one end of each cookie in some melted white chocolate.

 What Is Thandai Masala?

Thandai is a refreshing, cooling, traditional milk based Indian Drink that is quite popular during the Holi Festival. Made from spices, nuts, seeds and rose petals it is not only a refreshing cool drink  but also a nutritious. With the beginning of the hot days during Holi festival and also Shivratri, it is ideal to serve this cooling drink to the guests. Actually, when one says thandai, it refers to the powder or syrup used to make the drink and also to the drink itself. As a matter of fact, in Hindi it means cooling.

I prefer to make the powder as  opposed to the syrup. I like to add the powder to muffins, rava cake. chia pudding , baked yogurt.

Flour

For this recipe I prefer using all purpose flour. If you want to, replace it with wheat flour. Make sure it is Atta the one we use for rotis and chapattis. You may need to add more milk as wheat flour tends to absorb more liquid.

Corn Starch | Corn Flour

The white one, that resembles powder. It helps to make the cookies a bit more soft.

Baking Soda

Also known as Soda Bicarbonate, I add some to make the cookies lighter and more crunchy.

Butter

Use unsalted or salted. I use salted one. If you use unsalted butter then you may need to add a generous pinch of salt to the cookie batter. Make sure the butter is soft at room temperature. Do not soften it in the microwave oven. It will melt.

Sugar

Best to use powdered sugar for this recipe. Process normal white sugar in a spice jar or use confectioners icing sugar.

Milk

About 2 tbsp of milk is usually enough. However, it depends on the quality of the flour. Some tend to absorb more liquid than others. If you find the dough too stiff then add 1 tbsp at a time. Generally 1 -2 tbsp extra is more than enough.

Rose Water

I like to add rose water to the cookie dough for more floral flavour. If you are not a fan of floral flavours then omit it.

White Chocolate

Dipping the baked cookies in white chocolate is totally optional. I did that to make them more festive. Must admit the cookies tasted really good.

Pistachio

Chop a few pistachios to a coarse powder. We will use it to sprinkle some on the white chocolate.

Rose Petals

I am a huge fan of the damask roses buds as they tend to be flavourful, aromatic and sweetish. I usually get them from Dubai. If you have roses in your garden without any chemicals sprayed on them, then use those petals. Again, this is an optional ingredient.