Jeera Cookies

Jeera cookies are famous Indian salted cookies often enjoyed as a teatime snack. These cookies are savory yet have a mild sweetness and taste great with any beverage. Presenting my version of Indian cumin seed cookies or jeera biscuits.

What Are Jeera Cookies?

Jeera or zeera is the Hindi name for cumin seeds. For this recipe, we use roasted and fragrant jeera or cumin seeds.

This is one of those famous egg-free or eggless cookies that we Indians enjoy with our tea. This tea-time snack is widely popular because of its lightly sweet and salty taste and a crispy texture. Unlike the soft cookies that we often see in the USA, this is a crispy cookie. Also, we call it a biscuit instead of a cookie. 

What makes this cookie so crispy is its dough which uses a fair-share of butter mixed and incorporated well in the flour mixture to give a light, crispy and crumbly texture. You need to try this to see what it is like. Also those cumins not only enhance the flavors, but they also add up to the nutrition value. Read the health benefits of cumin here.

How to make Jeera Cookies?

Start by dry roasting half a cup of cumin seeds in a frying pan while keeping the heat to medium-low. Soon the seeds will turn dark and fragrant and may release a fume. Don’t let the seeds burn or they will turn bitter. You don’t need oil or ghee to roast the cumin seeds.

Ingredients for Jeera Cookies:

All-Purpose Flour – 1 cup + 2 tablespoons, Unsalted Butter – ½cup, Confectioners Sugar/Icing Sugar – ⅓ cup, Cumin seeds - 1 tbsp, Salt – ½ tsp

Method Of Making Jeera Biscuits:

• Unsalted butter should be at room temperature when working with this recipe. 
• In case you are skipping unsalted butter for some reason, you can use plant butter or coconut oil. If you are using salted butter, then skip the salt used in this recipe. 
• In a frying pan, add cumin seeds and roast them on medium-low heat until the seeds are fragrant and become dark brown in color. Once the seeds cool down a bit, crush half of them lightly using a mortar and pestle.
• We will use the rest half like a cookie topping.
• In a large bowl, sift all the dry ingredients and add all salt and the roasted cumin seeds powder to it. Mix it really well and set aside. 
• In another bowl, add unsalted butter and confectioners sugar. Use a silicone spatula to mix the butter and sugar until the mixture looks fluffy. 
• Now add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix it really well. Mix it gently and slowly till the flour-butter mixture comes together and forms a dough. The dough should be soft at this point. If your dough is crumbly for some reason, add few drops of milk and mix it till it becomes a soft and smooth dough.
• Make a log out of the dough and tightly wrap the dough with a cling plastic wrap tightly and refrigerate it for one hour. 
• Take out the cookie dough after an hour and use a sharp knife to cut it into round pieces. Try to keep the thickness the same while cutting the cookies (about ¼ cm each).
• The baking time will vary based on the width of the cookie. If the cookies are thin, then reduce the baking time by five minutes.
• At this point, preheat your oven at 350F. 
• Align the baking tray with parchment paper and place the cookies on the tray at least an inch apart. Add few roasted cumin seeds on each cookie and gently press them.
• Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes at 180C / 350F till the cookies start to brown around the edges and look light golden brown.
• After the baking time, transfer the cookies onto a cooling rack for sometime before storing them.
• Enjoy!

Note: 

• Don’t overmix the sugar and butter. The more the air, the worst the cookie. 
• Keep a close eye on the cookies after 8 minutes as all ovens temperature varies and your cookie may turn brown before you know.
• This recipe will yield around 12-15 cookies depending on the size of the cookies. 
• The cookie's texture will be crispy, crumbly, and firm.

📖 Recipe

Here are some more cookie recipes that you may love!

• Vegan Keto Pumpkin Cookies
• Vegan Keto Sesame Cookies