The Startup Cook – Coffee and Pani Kaju Biscuits 

Everyone around me tells me that I drink too much of coffee. I, of course don’t see anything wrong with it but for the sake of peace, I have taken the tedious task of curtailing my caffeine intake. Therefore to make it up for what was loss in liquid form, I turned to this fantastic recipe.

Courtesy Nigella Lawson from her book How to be a Domestic Goddess, these lip-smacking treats are known as Coffee & Walnut Splodge Biscuits. Adding a very evident twist, I have substituted Walnuts with our very own Pani Kaju. The combination is absolutely scrumptious.

Its cakey, nutty texture coupled with a serious tinge of caffeine is bliss to my coffee craving palette. But I must admit though, despite everything these delicious disks can be relished in a much deeper sense with a steaming cup of coffee. Yummmmmmmmmm!

Ingredients

1 cup of flour
50 g of pani kaju
1 egg
¼ cup of white sugar
6 tbs of butter
2 tbs of brown sugar
2 ½ tsp of instant coffee (powder)
½ tsp of baking powder
½ tsp of vanilla essence

Directions

Preheat oven to 180 celcius. Prepare a baking sheet and set it aside.

Chuck the pani kaju in to a small zip lock bag, seal and bash it. (You want both shards and powder).

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the butter and both kinds of sugar until it becomes light and fluffy.

Then add the egg, vanilla, coffee powder and whisk until it’s well combined.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking powder together, add it to the coffee mixture and whisk for a few seconds.

Gently fold in the pani kaju.

Take a tablespoon sized measuring spoon, scoop out some batter, mould it in to a circular shape and place it on the prepared tray.

Repeat the process for the rest of the batter.

Bake for 10 - 12 minutes (rotate them once in between).

Disasters, Warnings and Tips

I LOVE these biscuits. If rhyme was my thing I would write a poem about them.

My friend Hasulie (who is an awesome chef) gave me How To Be A Domestic Goddess.

Refrain from using coffee granules for this recipe. Use only powder.

I made around 10 – 12 cookies with these measurements.

The sugar quantity may be insufficient for some folks.

Do not use coffee in liquid form for this recipe. It can mess the density of the biscuit.

There is something unmistakably therapeutic about bashing that pani kaju.

By Shazzana Hamid