Karachi Bakery Biscuits

Karachi Bakery Biscuits

The Mahabharata was fought over distribution of land.

 Lord Rama left home to honour his father’s promise as he didn’t want his kingdom to be divided.

 Don’t worry I am not going to preach a sermon or tell you about the epics. My point is division or batwara. It has been the bane since ages. And it is happening in my home now. The fight is not over land or money or assets. It is over a box of Karachi Bakery Biscuits. And it is no laughing matter!!

We had friends from Hyderabad who would get us these lovely Fruit biscuits from Karachi Bakery every time they came back from vacation. And hubby and I would squabble over them. Now they are moving away permanently and we have this last box of the biscuits. 

Last box!! Oh dear!!! No more Karachi biscuits for us!! And so this last box has become a bone of contention between us two. We have argued and fought over the last little broken bit and divided the biscuits. Every day we count them carefully to ensure that the opponent has not pilfered away something from the other.

But how long will this last? The biscuits will soon be consumed. And so I had to learn how to make these.

I read the list of ingredients on the box. 

Wheat flour, tutti frutti cashew bits, salt and sugar are fine. The two main problems were the hydrogenated vegetable fat and milk solids. I had neither. The vegetable fats might be something akin to Dalda. And the milk solids might mean “khoya”. So it was time to improvise.

I remember making a tart in which I used shortening in the base. And the base turned out to be so very “khasta”. I use this word for lack of an equivalent in any language. It means the crumbly texture. So I decided to use half butter and half shortening.

Next came the milk solids. How many of you like to eat milk powder? I do! And I remember reading on the packet that it contains milk solids and sugar. Also I had read recipes using milk powder and the response to those were good. So milk powder it was.

Here is my interpretation of the Karachi bakery Biscuits!!

Ingredients

1 cup all purpose flour (you can use wheat flour)

25 gms milk powder ( roughly 6 small sachets of milk powder)

50 gms butter

50 gms shortening

½ cup castor sugar

½ cup tutti frutti

¼ cup cashew bits

1 tsp salt

Cream the butter, shortening and sugar till it turns pale. 

Add the tutti fruutti and cashew and mix. 

Take the milk powder. 

Sieve the flour, milk powder and salt. Add to the butter mix in two batches. Use a spatula to incorporate the flour in.

 Do not overbeat. The idea is to gently bring together the dough. 

Keep patting it together and slowly form a long log with sharp edges. It is not supposed to be round. 

Wrap the log in clingfilm. Put it in the freezer for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees. Take out the log and cut equal sized slices. 

Place them a bit apart on a baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes.