Bahar: This is a very simple with almost no planning-ahead time. No need for a blender. It needs oil (instead of butter at room temperature like most of the cookies) which saves you few hours of planning ahead time. The recipe makes the cookies in three different flavors, vanilla, chocolate and ginger.
I found the recipe in a Persian cooking blog/website (shindokht.com/Food/).
3. Mix the oil with powdered sugar and beat well (about 3-5 minutes). Add vanilla and beat well for another minute or so.
4. Add the flour slowly in multiple (4 to 5) additions and mix well after each addition.
5. Divide the dough into three. Add the ginger powder to on part, the cocoa powder to another and left the last one to be plain vanilla flavored.
6. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Make balls of the dough (about 1 inch) and put on prepared baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Decorate the chocolaty ones with chocolate chips and the rest with slivered almond and or pistachio. Bake for 15-20 minutes until dry and slightly golden brown on the bottom. Check the cookies after 12-15 minutes and make sure not to over bake them as they can get slightly hard to chew. Remove to wire racks to cool.
Published on July 23, 2008 Last edited on January 18, 2009
Answer to Chef: This is very strange indeed. Here are few things that I can think of: 1) Do not use more oil that is in the recipe. 2) Add the flower slowly and mix well but do not overmix. 3) The dough is not supposed to be runny and very smooth (it looks kind of like a ginger bread dough if you've seen one before), so do not add more oil if it doesn't look smooth to you. 4) If the dough is kind of runny and/or your kitchen temperature is high, put the dough for half an hour o
Mine came out tasting more oily even though I used melted butter. Chocoalte ones looked chocolate but had very little taste, My family didnt like the ginger cookies at all, Vanilla cookies were oily tasting. My family requested not to make these again and to stick to their traditional favorites. The batter was dry, after cooking they came out flat nothing like the picture
to Sue: they should turn out almost dry and definitely not oily. If you decide to try again use vegetable oil and not butter, that might help. Yes, the chocolate ones do not have strong chocolate taste of course (1 Tbsp cocoa) they are supposed to have little flavor and more color. If you do not ginger cookies in general you definitely don't want to make the gingery variation.
