Rose & Cardamom Biscuits

These two ingredients combined you will often see in Middle Eastern or Indian cuisine. I saw a recipe for an Indian Lassi (yoghurt flavoured drink) which used these ingredients and thought they might go well in a shortbread style biscuit. It took a few tries to get the combination of cardamom and rose water right and this is the final recipe which produces a light fragrance of both ingredients.  I enjoy them with a nice cup of  English tea, or perhaps a Turkish apple tea if you have access to it. 

Ingredients

• 6 oz/170g Four
• 4 oz/113g Butter (soften but not melted)
• 2 oz/56g caster sugar
• 2 tablespoons rose water
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom seeds (pounded with mortar & pestel)

Method

1. Dry cook cardamom seeds in the bottom of a pan for several minutes to release their fragrance, pound with a mortar & pestel to a powder. You can use already ground cardamom but grinding you own does give more fragrance.
2. Preheat oven on bake (not fan bake) to 160 degrees centigrade and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
3. Sift flour into bowl.
4. Add butter and rub into flour.
5. Add sugar and keep rubbing ingredients together so it start to form bigger clumps.
6. Before the dough comes together completely stir in the rose water and mix.
7. Gently bring ingredients together to form dough. Do not over mix otherwise dough will become tough and biscuits will have a pastry texture instead of a shortbread texture.
8. Lay dough onto a large piece of cling film and wrap dough. Once wrapped roll dough to form a cylinder shape about 2 inch diametre (this will be the size of the biscuit diametre before cooked).
9. Put wrapped dough into fridge for 30 mintues.
10. Once dough is firm, remove from fridge and slice 1/2 inch thick rounds and place onto prepared baking tray.
11. Bake for 15 minutes or until a very light golden on edges.
12. Cool on a wire rack and then dust with icing sugar once cool.

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