Makes 24 cookies. Total cooking time, 30 minutes.
Exploring some of the grains popular on the continent and devising up new ways to enjoy them as flavour and texture enhancers in other contexts and not using them as the major ingredient in a dish or creation. These cookies can be coated in either teff, maize, millet or sorghum individually or in whatever combination you'd like.
Ingredients
Cookie dough
1/2 cup butter, cubed and softened at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/8 cups self-raising flour
3/4 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cookie coating
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 table spoons dried grain of choice (teff, maize and millet don't have to be pre-cooked , but with sorghum make sure you thoroughly boil your grain until it's almost overcooked).
Optional: 1 tablespoon warm spices like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg
Method
1. Cream the sugar and softened butter in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy.
2. Add the egg and vanilla and cream for another 2 minutes or so making sure to scrape all the dough on the sides down into the mixture.
3. Sift in the remaining dry ingredients and stir well until just combined. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel or clingfilm and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
4. While your dough rests, pre-heat your oven to 180°C and prepare your dough coating blend of choice. There is a lot of room to play around here so freestyle based on your tastes. Here are a few starting points
- maize and ginger blend,1/4 cup sugar, tablespoon ginger, 3 tablespoons maize meal
- 1/4 cup brown sugar, 3 tablespoons teff
- 1/4 cup brown sugar, 3 tablespoons overcooked and paper towel-dried sorghum
5. Cover a baking tray with non-stick wax paper or foil. Fetch your dough from the fridge and set nearby on the counter. Roll a heaped teaspoon of dough into a ball and drop 4 at a time into the coating mix. Roll the balls around until they are well covered. Finally, apply a second coating by showering the balls with the coating and carefully transfer them to the baking tray.
Maize and ginger
Teff
6. Once your tray is full, gently press down each ball of dough by about 5 mm and bake at 180°C for 9 - 11 min. Check them at about 9 min and stop baking as soon as the edges start turning light golden brown in colour. We want a soft and chewy final product.
Take a look at the difference a matter of 1 to 2 min can make to the final colour and indeed the final texture and moisture content of these teff cookies. Enjoy and let us know how they turn out via Instagram, Facebook or Twitter
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