Elaichi Biscuits Recipe | Rose Cardamom Cookies

Elaichi Biscuits Recipe | Rose Cardamom Cookies

Fall in love with these rose flavored Elaichi Biscuits or soft rose and cardamom cookies, made healthy with the use of whole wheat flour and jaggery powder. These healthy cardamom spice cookies serve as one of the best Roohafza recipes.

I think if I have to do one thing everyday for the rest of my life, I would choose to bake cookies. There was a time when I used to do a lot of baking, which mostly included cakes, cupcakes, muffins and some other savory bakes, but never ever did I bake cookies.

And guess what, ever since I started baking cookies, there was no looking back. My husband thinks that my bakes always come back to doing some or the other experiments with cookies, and I won’t lie, he’s right. I keep thinking about new bakes and fusion Indian recipes all the time, but somehow many a times end up baking a different variation in cookies, LOL.

Well, I should also mention that my family starts missing my cookie bakes if I have to postpone it for few days, due to some reason. So, I guess we all like it, at the end of the day.

Since summer season is going on, so it’s the time for all the cool drinks that we gulp down as fast as we can. For those who know about this rose syrup that I am using for this particular bake, you know how much memories this drink might have had created in families. Yes, I am talking about Hamdard Rooh afza. I have the fondest summer memories of my childhood, especially summer vacations, when we all cousins would make this drink in bulk and keep drinking for all day long. Ah, those were the days!

Cardamom And Rose Cookies Recipe – The Inspiration

I was able to find this syrup here at an Indian Grocery Store in California. So, I had to get it to relive those memories again. And the love for baking cookies and also the love for this rose syrup had to make an amalgamation worth remembering, that’s how these Cardamom Biscuits recipe got it’s form.

The recipe uses whole wheat flour (also called “Aata” in Punjabi language). I use Multigrain Aata that I get from Indian stores (Brands that I have tried are Aashirwad, Deep, Sujata etc.). Also, these cookies are sweetened with jaggery powder. These two things (whole wheat flour and jaggery powder) have been the essence of almost all of my bakes, and have replaced all purpose flour and refined sugar completely from the homemade desserts that I make.

But, the rose syrup I am using does have refined sugar in it. In the end, when you want to try creating a new recipe, I always feel that, “You win some, you lose some!”. Roohafza is the essence of this bake, and the nostalgia it renders does not stop me from using it, irrespective of the refined sugar in it. Thats’s the reason I call this one of the best Rooh afza recipes!

If you are okay with trying out roohafza desserts made using white flour and sugar, then I would definitely recommend these rose shortbread cookies by Milk & Cardamom.

The Cardamom Powder or Elaichi Powder added to the cookies works beautifully with rose syrup and imparts a great flavor to the Elaichi biscuits recipe. I prefer to make the ground cardamom on the fly using the cardamom seeds or pods and crushing them with the traditional method of using mortar & pestle. It doesn’t get too finely ground, but works for me.

Note: I have bought Roohafza bottle from Indian Store, but you can also find it online on Amazon. Also, feel free to use any other brand of rose syrup available with you.

How to make these Soft Elaichi Biscuits?

Making these cookies is a simple process. Also note that I don’t use any electric mixer to prepare the cookie dough but I prefer to make the dough by hand. Always remember to not over-mix the dough at any step, you just have to blend everything together with hands evenly. Here is the step-by-step process.

• Mix the butter and jaggery powder till the jaggery powder is completely blended with the butter. Add in the egg and vanilla extract and rose syrup to the above mixture and stir till all the ingredients are uniformly mixed.
• Mix in whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder, ground cardamom and salt to the wet mixture and give it a good mix with hand. Put the dough in the fridge for at least 10-20 minutes.
• Remove the cookie dough from the refrigerator and line a baking tray with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 375 degree F.
• Take around 1-2 tbsp of dough in your hands, form a ball, and flatten a little. Bake the cookies for around 10 minutes in the preheated oven and serve hot, or store in an air tight container at room temperature after the cookies cool completely on a wire rack.

Substitutions & Tips for Cardamom Spice Cookies

• Whole Wheat Flour – Feel free to replace whole wheat flour with the same quantity of all-purpose flour. If the cookie dough feels a little loose, add ~ 1/4th cup more of all-purpose flour.
• Jaggery Powder – If Jaggery Powder is not available, you can replace it with equal amount of unrefined cane sugar.
• Rose Syrup – If Roohafza is not available, feel free to replace it with other brand of rose syrup available with you.
• Egg – To make the recipe eggless, I would advise to replace the egg with either of these two options:
  • Chia Seed Gel (Mix 1 Tbsp powdered Chia seeds with 3 Tbsp water, and let it soak for 5 minutes)
  • Flax Seed Gel (Mix 1 Tbsp powdered Flax seeds with 3 Tbsp water, and let it soak for 5 minutes)

NOTE – For eggless version, powdered seeds are preferred. But if not available, you can use whole seeds for soaking!

PRO TIP – Add some crushed Pistachios on top of cookies before baking. It will definitely enhance the flavor!!

Also, continuing the tradition, here comes the 44th recipe under My Julie & Julia Project. For those who don’t know, I had started this project last year, under which I had planned to post 100 recipes from my kitchen by the end of the year 2019. But since I got busy with other priorities in life, I have planned to continue the tradition in 2020. So, this is the Recipe #44 for you all.

If you like this recipe, do check out these Eggless Indian Jeera Biscuits recipe from the blog as well. Let’s get going to the Elaichi Biscuits Recipe aka Indian Cardamom Cookies Recipe now. Happy baking everyone!!

How to make Elaichi Biscuits Recipe – Method (Step-by-step with pictures)

• Mix the butter and jaggery powder till it is completely blended with the butter. I prefer to mix by hand since I don’t use mixer. Whisk or spatula is not helpful in this case, since the butter is not in a completely melted state.

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• Add in the egg and vanilla extract to the above and mix everything together.
• Add rose syrup and stir till all the ingredients are uniformly mixed. The wet ingredients mixture is now ready.

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• For the dry ingredients, mix in whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder, powdered cardamom and salt to the wet mixture.
• Give it a good mix with hand. It is advisable to put the dough in the fridge for at least 10-20 minutes.

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• Remove the cookie dough from the refrigerator. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
• Preheat oven to 375 degree F.
• Take around 1-2 Tablespoon of dough in your hands, form a ball, and flatten a little. I was able to make 15 cookies with the prepared dough.

• Bake the cookies for around 10-12 minutes in the preheated oven, or till you see creases on top of the cookies (Mine got done in exactly 10 minutes). The cookies will be soft to touch, but once cooled, they will be fine.
• Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool for at least 5-10 minutes.

The Rose Flavored Biscuits are now ready to be served. Also, these can be stored in an air-tight container for a week or two.

Healthy Cardamom Dessert Recipes | Rose Cardamom Cookies – Rooh afza Recipes