Preparation of Biscuits and Cookies

Preparation of Biscuits and Cookies

Aim: To obtain the skill of baking biscuits to start a bakery unit.

Equipment needed: Baking oven, mixing bowls, ladles, rolling pin and board, bis-cuit cutters.

Procedure

Biscuits: 

A small baked unleavened bis-cuit, typically crisp, flat and sweet.

Biscuits are classified according to the method of making like rubbed-in, creamed and so on.

Rubbed – in Biscuits: It is prepared by rubbing – in of the fat into the flour. This is done by placing the flour in a large mix-ing bowl, and then adding butter which has been cut into pieces then rubbing both the ingredients together between fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Creamed Biscuits: Fat and sugar should be creamed like it is done for cakes. This is done by placing softened butter in a large mixing bowl, then adding the sugar, and beating the ingredients together with a wooden spoon or electric whisk, until the mixture is well blended, light and fluffy.

Depending on the type of biscuit being made, wet ingredients such as eggs or milk are stirred in before the flour or other dry ingredients are added. These dough are often very soft, so small spoon-ful are dropped onto baking sheets.

Whisked Biscuits: The name refers to the way in which the egg content is treated.

Egg whites are whisked until firm

Egg yolks/whole eggs are whisked together with the sugar until thickened and lightened.

These types of biscuits range from straight-forward whisked egg whites with added sugar in the form of light as air meringues to more substantial biscuits such as coconut macaroons.

Melted Biscuits: The recipes which include liquid sweeteners use honey, golden (corn) syrup or molasses. The bis-cuit is prepared after melting all sweeten-ers (including sugar) with fat and stirred until mixed well. The other ingredients are added to the melted ingredients and mixed in the saucepan. The mixture can be soft enough to easily drop from a spoon.

Varagu Biscuits

Ingredients          Quantity

Varagu flour         :         100 g

Wheat flour :         100 g

Sugar (powder)    :         100 g

Cold butter :         100 g

Baking powder     :         1 tsp

Vanilla essence     :         1/2 tsp

Milk  :         2 tsp

Method

·        Roast varagu flour on a low flame until a nice aroma of roasted varagu is got. Allow it to cool.

·        Sieve together varagu flour, wheat flour and baking powder.

·        Cut butter into pieces and add to the sieved flour.

·        Rub-in until the mixture is crumbled.

·        Add powdered sugar and mix well.

·        Add little milk at a time and make smooth dough.

·        Refrigerate the dough for 15-20 min-utes.

·        Dust wheat flour and roll the dough.

·        Use biscuit cutters and cut into desired shapes.

·        Place on a greased tray and bake at 1800C for 15-20 minutes. Remove and cool the biscuits.

Short Bread Fingers

Ingredients          Quantity

Maida         :         120 g

Sugar :         60 g

Butter         :         80 g

Vanilla essence     :         a few drops

Egg    :         for coating

Salt   :         a pinch

Method

·        Sieve maida twice and add sugar.

·        Rub- in butter with finger tips.

·        Knead till smooth dough is got.

·        Roll and cut into fingers of 3/4th inch thick.

·        Brush the top of each biscuit with egg.

·        Bake at 3000 F for 15 minutes.

Cookies

Aim: To obtain the skill of preparing cookies to start a bakery.

Equipment needed Mixing bowl, spoon, mixie, oven, egg beater

Procedure

Cookies are baked or cooked goods that are small, flat and sweet. They usually contain flour, sugar and some type of oil or fat. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips and nuts.

Drop cookies are made from relatively soft dough that is dropped by spoonful onto the baking sheet. During baking, the mounds of dough spread and flatten. Chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies and rock cakes are popular examples of drop cookies.

Stiff batter cookies are prepared from a stiff dough. It is made stiffer by refrigerating it before cutting and baking. Then they are rolled into cylinders which are sliced into round cookies before slicing them into cookies. Pinwheel cookies are the best example for this.

Meringue cookies are light, airy, sweet, and crisp because whipped egg whites and sugar is the base of them. With no flour they are a perfect sweet treat for those eat-ing gluten-free.

Sponge cookies are light and airy like the meringue cookies but whole egg is used instead of only egg whites.

Raisin cookies

Ingredients Quantity

Wheat flour : 100 g       

Varagu flour         : 50 g

Butter         : 150 g       

Sugar : 100 g       

Raisins        : 50 g

Egg    : 40 g

Baking powder     : a pinch     

Vanilla powder    : 2 drops    

Method

·        Preheat oven to 1900C.

·        In a separate bowl, whisk together both the flours, baking powder and egg.

·        Beat butter until smooth and creamy in a bowl.

·        Add the flour mixture to the batter and mix thoroughly. Add enough milk to make a soft batter. Then add the rai-sins and beat until combined.

·        For each cookie, drop about one table-spoon of batter onto the prepared bak-ing sheet, spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart. Bake the cookies for about 15 to 20 minutes.

·        Remove from oven and transfer the cookies onto a wire rack to cool.

Coconut cookies

Ingredients          Quantity

Maida         :         100g

Fat    :         50g

Sugar :         50g

Desiccated coconut        :         30g

Granulated sugar  :         15g

Baking powder     :         1g

Method

·        Sift the flour twice with baking powder.

·        Mix all the ingredients to form homog-enous dough.

·        Break the dough into small pieces.

·        Roll the dough and place over the bak-ing sheet 1 inch apart.

·        Bake at 2500F for 15-20 minutes.