Maida Biscuit

Maida biscuit is one of the most easiest snacks to prepare. It tastes good (of course, anything that is deep fried, ought to!) and it requires very minimal ingredients and time. These biscuits come in two versions - sweet and savory. You add sugar to the former, and salt to the latter. That’s it. I thought I would try this simple snack by taking a slightly “healthier” route - baking instead of deep frying.

Ingredients

1. 2 cups of all purpose flour (maida)
2. 1 - 1.5 teaspoons of salt (according to your preference)
3. 1 teaspoon of chilli powder
4. ¼ - ½ stick of unsalted butter (I used 1/2 stick; the more the better, of course :))
5. 1 teaspoon slightly crushed cumin seeds (jeera)
6. ¼ teaspoon of Hing
7. 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (optional)

Preparation

1. Sift the all-purpose flour. To the sifted flour, add salt, chilli powder, crushed cumin seeds, and hing. Mix together. If you prefer, you can add some baking soda at this point. Since we’re not deep frying, the baking soda helps the biscuits to puff a bit while baking. But it’s optional.
2. Add room temperature softened butter (cut into pieces) to the dry mixture and start kneading the dough by sprinkling some water (a total of about 3/4 cup). You could use an electric beater too. The dough needs to come together into a soft mass - very similar to the consistency of chapathi dough. The dough should be soft and cushion-y to touch.
3. Roll out the entire dough (or a batch of it) using a rolling pin. Powder the rolling surface and the dough with some flour so that it doesn’t stick to the surface. Spread the dough into a pseudo-rectangle to about 1/4-1/8  inch in thickness.
4. Using a pizza cutter/roller (or a very sharp knife) cut the dough into small rectangular/diamond pieces.
5. Pre-heat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet/cookie tray with parchment paper (wax paper). Arrange the cut biscuits on the tray and bake them for 10-12 minutes on one side. Flip all the pieces onto the other side, and bake for 5-8 minutes. The biscuits should turn slightly golden brown in the oven. Remember, when you take them out, they continue baking in the remaining heat and they turn a shade darker. So don’t wait for the biscuits to turn brown in the oven.

I was pleasantly surprised that they were quite crunchy, and when stored in an air-tight container, they remained fresh and crunchy for more than a month without a trace of staleness! If you want to deep fry, just add the cut pieces to hot oil and fry till they turn golden brown.