Ever since I made cranberry shortbread, I fell in love with biscuits with dried cranberry in them. I do fancy them quite often but the amount of butter somehow puts me down. It may rather be easy to buy a packet of biscuit but when I read the list of ingredients in them, I invariably put them back in the supermarket shelf or even worse, I buy them, but not gather the courage to eat them and eventually bin them after the ‘expiry’ date. It is so satisfying when you know exactly what is going into your tummy and as well as that of people you love. When I started off with my baking trials (quite nervously), I did try a biscuit with oil and no butter. However, it only came out like a cookie (chewy and soft) and not crispy and have a bite. This time, when I came across an interesting recipe that called only for oil, I was intrigued. In the last few months, I have learned a lot around baking and thought now may be the time to try a recipe that has much less butter in it. Rather than going 0% butter, I divided the total fat between butter and oil and I must say that despite this, overall fat content of the biscuit is still lesser than what would normally be used. I thought that completely butterless biscuit will not go down well and there is no point in baking something that will sit on my counter glaring at me. You could use margarine if you wish or if you are bolder than I am, do try 100% oil and let me know how it turns out. Eventually, the recipe was nothing like where I drew the inspiration from but I am glad I ran into that recipe...
¼ cup butter, softened
¼ cup sunflower oil
2 ½ teaspoon baking powder
¾ cup whole wheat flour
¾ cup all purpose flour
Less than ½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup dried currants
¼ cup dried cranberries
¼ cup milk
Sift together the flours and baking powder
Add the sugar and mix. Add the cranberries, currants (soak the currants in water for five minutes before adding to avoid them burning), softened butter and mix by hand so the mixture looks like breadcrumbs
Add the oil and mix further so it just begins to form a dough
Add the milk but make sure you add just enough milk to make a soft dough. Depending on the flour, the milk quantity may vary. As I thought the dough was slightly more softer than needed (it would have been ok if I had rested the dough in the fridge) I added couple of tablespoons of bran, you could add oats or just more flour too
Divide into portions and roll a disc of about 3-5mm thick and cut into desired shapes and place on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Leave about an inch gap between each of them.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180degC for 10-12 minutes, until the biscuits brown. Transfer to cooling rack and store in air tight container once cooled
amazing looking cookies..
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