Eggless Almond Cardamom Cookies Recipe

Here's a riddle: I am sleepy but can't sleep. Once I manage to sleep, I can't bring myself to get up. What is happening to you if this is how you feel?

While you think about that, here's a super delicious, ridiculously simple and eggless cookie recipe. The cardamom lends an amazing flavour and the family I baked this for loved it! Might good choice by the Sweet Punch team this month I should say.

Eggless Almond Cardamom Cookies Recipe
Makes 30 medium-sized cookies
Adapted from: Manjula's Kitchen

Ingredients:
1.5 cups whole wheat flour / atta
3/4 cup sugar (powder coarsely if using regular white sugar)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sliced almonds
3/4 tsp green cardamom seed coarsely powdered
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
About 2-3 tablespoons of milk (only if you need it)

How I Made It:

1. Pre-heat oven to 360F / 180C

2. In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt, sliced almonds and cardamom powder well.

3. Next add soft butter (and milk if needed) to the flour mixture to make dough. Dough should be very soft.

4. Divide the dough into about 32 equal parts and make them into balls. Press each ball between your palms lightly; every piece should be about 1/2” in thickness. Place the dough balls on an ungreased cookie sheet or parchment paper about an inch apart.

5. Bake the cookies for about 18 minutes or until cookies are lightly gold brown. After they become lightly golden brown remove the cookie sheet from the oven. Let the cookies cool down for two to three minutes before taking them off the cookie sheet.

Notes:

- make sure that the butter is completely soft and at room temperature, otherwise you will get crumbly dough when you mix and end up adding more milk than necessary, which will make the baked cookies more crackly and hard.

- I made 1.5 times the original recipe and got only 30 medium-sized cookies, as opposed to 36 - the number mentioned in Manjula's post.

- You can lessen the amount of sugar a bit if you'd like, they will still turn out sweet enough I feel. That will make them perfect with coffee/tea.

The flavour of the cardamom is amazing so don't hold back on them

These are absolutely delicious and the flavour of cardamom makes it extra special. Do yourself a favour and bake thee asap!

Cardamom Tea and The Memories That Came With It

As she wrapped her fingers around the warm cup of cardamom tea on the way to the living room couch, she couldn't help wondering what they would be doing back home now. She glanced at the clock and realised its 2pm back home. Hmm.. nap time for everyone except her mom, who would just lie down on the living room sofa, book in hand, nodding off now and then.

Looking down at the mug in her hand, she was taken back to all those cups of tea she has shared with her family. Promptly at 4, their long-time maid would bring the steaming cups, each one of a different shape and size. Her dad liked his clear glass mug that could just about hold one cup of tea. Her mom liked bigger portions of tea so her mug was significantly bigger, easily holding about 2 cups of tea. Her grandmom, however, would not hear of using a ceramic mug, or re-heating her tea for that matter. Hers was a worn out, thick, and heavy stainless steel tumbler that was slightly dented at the bottom so it would always clang against the other mugs as it made its way to her.

Her mug, now that was a story in itself. Hers was a plain white melamin mug that she had tried to customize at various stages in her life. When she was 13, she tried to use fabric paint and draw hearts all over it. The paint washed off leaving faint stains of pink. Clearly, fabric paint was only meant for fabrics! At 16, she came across some particular type of goo in tubes that supposedly stuck to wood, ceramic and glass. Those squiggly lines and leaves peeled off in time too, now leaving faint smudges of bronze and grey over the pink stains from before.

With a start, she realised she was sitting alone and smiling to herself, in this house that they had painstakingly saved up for and finally owned, each and every article carefully chosen and coordinated. Even the deep blue mug in her hand matched the rest of her kitchen utensils and the shade of their living room walls. As she looked at the last dregs of her tea and idly rotated it watching the small tea leaves swirling around the cardamom peels, she realised that she hated being alone for long.

The doorbell rang and she set down her mug and briskly walked to the door. As he came in grinning, hair still damp from his swim, she smiled again. His share of tea was waiting in the kitchen, still hot and giving out a heady fragrance. As she poured it out into his favourite black mug, she realised that there was enough to fill her mug halfway too. Mugs in hand, she walked back to the couch and sat beside him. "We should probably call your folks now, its been a while right?" he asked, vigorously toweling his head.

She nodded, smiled, and took another sip of her tea before reaching out for the phone.

To make cardamom tea

Bring 1/2 a cup of water to boil. Add black tea leaves (unflavoured) and 3 pods of crushed cardamom, and simmer until the flavour seeps in. To this, add 1.5 cups of low fat milk and bring to boil, stirring gently. Top up with 2 tsp of sugar. Stir well. Strain into your favourite mugs and drink hot.

Serves her, him and then some more for her.

I understand that my entry to last month's Of Chalks and Chopsticks was less than satisfactory. Hope this makes up for that. Sending this off to Sra who is hosting this month's Of Chalks and Chopsticks, an event kick-started by Aqua.