Kesar Pista Cookie Recipe – Eggless (Saffron Pistachio Cookies)

Kesar Pista Cookies is all time favourite for kids and grown ups as well. This is a rich looking cookie to be served to guests or on special occasions. It’s a calorie bomb but a little bit of indulgence won’t hurt.  This cookie looks similar to Pista badam cookies, though we are not using badam here. You will get a flavor of pista and nutmeg (jaayaphal) and a great aroma of elachi(cardamom), Kesar (saffron).

Kesar Pista Cookies Eggless – Ingredients Used

The following ingredients are for approximately 2 Dozen Cookies.

• Prep Time – 20 mins.
• Cooking Time – 20 mins.
• Total Time – 40 mins

1. 100 grams of Ghee (Clarified Indian butter) (approx. 1/2 cup)
2. 1/2 Cup  and 2 tbl. sp. Powdered sugar (approx. 120 gms)
3. 1/2 tsp saffron (Kesar)- around 15-20 strands
4. 1/4th nutmeg (Jaayaphal) – in Powdered Form
5. 6 pcs cardamom (Elaichi) – in Powdered Form
6. 1.5 cup All pupose flour (Maida)
7. Roughly broken Pistachio (Pista) – around 30 pcs
8. Approx. 2 tbl. sp. warm milk

Stepwise procedure to make every one’s favourite Eggless Kesar Pista Cookies:

1. We will start making our favourite Kesar Pista Cookies with the creaming process. Take ghee and powdered sugar in a bowl and start mixing till the batter becomes smooth and creamy and all the lumps are gone.

2. Soak the Kesar strands in the milk for some time and then crush it into the fine paste.

I am using a metal pestle on a glass mortar in the following image. Don’t try that, it was meant only for the purpose of taking the pic.

3.  Add the powdered spices ( Cardamom and Nutmeg ) and crushed kesar paste into the cream mixture from step #1 and mix it well.

4. Now we need to bind everything together, i.e. mix the Maida (all pupose flour) with the mixture we prepared in step #3 with our hands. Incase you feel that the dough is too dry you can add milk to it as required so that the dough is just moist enough to roll.

 

 

5. Now the dough is ready to make our yummy Kesar Pista Cookies. But it’s just half done . We need to roll our dough onto a flat surface and then cut  into equal size. For this, we need to sprinkle little bit of maida over the surface so that the dough doesn’t stick over the surface . Now we need to take a part of the dough and roll the rolling pin (belan) over the dough up and down, very lightly.

   

6. We will sprinkle pistachio over the flatten dough and press it lightly with the help of the rolling pin. Sprinkle the pista generously as this will give a great taste after baking.

7. We need to cut cookies into equal size with the help of a cookie cutter. I lost my cookie cutter, so I used the lid of a plastic container. Not the ideal thing to do but it worked this time.

In the meanwhile, we should set the convection microwave or OTG to pre-heat at 160°C.

8. Finally, we will put the cookie on the cookie tray with the help of spatuala or flat knife, one by one.

9. Make sure the pre-heat is done. Now put the cookie tray into convection microwave for about 20 minutes. You should check after 10mins for the change in colour. A light brown color is what we need. Some people prefer a darker, so bake it accordingly. The cooking time will vary from oven to oven. I am using an LG MC2881SUS.

10. After 20 minutes, we need to take out the cookies from the oven and allow it to cool down for some time as the cookies will be too soft when it’s taken out from the oven. After 5 minutes we can check our crunchy Kesar Pista Cookies that has the goodness of kesar in it.

 

11. Your crunchy Kesar Pista Cookies are ready. Enjoy them with a hot cup of tea or coffee. Or just gorge on it.

Important Points to be noted in this Kesar Pista Cookies Recipe:

1. We need to keep an eye on the color while Kesar pista cookies are getting baked as sometimes it gets over baked . It generally happens in the second batch of baking.
   
   We can easily see the difference between the cookies in the above picture. The Kesar Pista Cookies on the lower side are little over baked even though we set the same temperature and time in the second batch.
2. Dough for the cookies needs to be rolled very gently so that it does not crumble.
3. The cooking time mentioned above 20mins is for 1 batch. Since my oven can fit limited number of cookies, i had to make it in 3 batches, that increased my overall cooking time. You can see if a larger tray fits in your microwave. Generally, the tray that comes along with the oven is small than what can fit in it.
4. We can give different shapes to the cookies.

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