Once again I  used the cuban short bread cookies as a reference  point for these cookies.

Ingredient:

• 75 gms  APF
• 35-40 gms butter
• A pinch of salt
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• 15 gms sugar
• A little egg to bind (about ¼ egg)
• Jam to top
• 8-10 cashew nuts coarsely ground

Method:

• Sift  together flour, salt and b.p. Keep aside.
• Rub in the butter using your finger such they the flour resembles bread crumbs. Adding egg bind the dough together.
• Make six to seven portions of the dough. Shape each of them into even round. Using your thumb press  the centre of the dough ball. The depression created wil be filled with jam post baking.
• Prepare all the six/seven pieces this way. Baste the sides and top of each cookie with egg white and lightly roll them in the crushed cashew such that the cashew evenly coveres the cookies.
• Bake at 180 deg C for about 10 mins.
• Remove from oven. Let cool and pipe in jam of your choice.

 

Notes: I got 8 small cookies out of this recipe. I wanted to try it in small quantities, so it worked out fine for me, but you may want to double up the recipe to meet your family’s needs. I struggled a bit in shaping these cookies. No matter what I did the depression in the centre wasnt deep enough!! I have realised that it works best to do the basic  shaping  of the cookie with your hands and then to place in on a flat surface and then create teh depression. If you try making the depression while holding the cookie in your hand, you get no depression at all!!  You could use any nuts besides cashews- almonds, pistachios,walnuts.  The choice of jam is also open to you. I had strawberry (with strawberry chunks) and mango jam at home. Kissan has come up with these cool squeeze tubes for jams. If you have one of those at home, use it to pipe in the jam. Its much easier and neater than spooning in the jam. If you want to store these cookies for a while, it might be a good idea to store them without the jam. Jam tends to make the cookies soft over time, so it makes sense to store them in air tight containers without the filling.Add the filling a little before serving. I liked these cookies because they  have the right amount of sweetness and crunchiness.