Whole Wheat Tutti- Frutti Biscuit | Karachi Biscuits

Tutti-frutti biscuit or simply the fruit biscuit are crunchy, aromatic, tea time biscuits. They are quite famous in India and they remind everyone of the famous Karachi Bakery in Hyderabad. No wonder, they are also famously known as Karachi Biscuits.  

These biscuits always remind me of celebrations. You know why? India has this great tradition of sharing homemade sweets and savoury items during festivals and celebrations with relatives, neighbours and friends. Over the years, the ways of celebrating festivals and other occasions have changed quite a lot. Now most of the things are store/market bought. From gifts to sweets and everything else is easily available in markets. Rather there are so many different options that at times we are left amazed and confused as to what should be bought and what not! From sweets, to chocolates, cookies and biscuits, namkeens/ mixtures and dry fruits etc. the list of options is just endless.

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It was only during this celebration month last year that we were gifted a box full of biscuit. There were assorted biscuits of different flavours, different colours, different ingredients and different aromas. Yes, I never miss that. They were simply amazing. My family devoured them so quickly. Even I liked them a lot. Especially, the small round ones which had these small little colourful, candied fruits in them. The taste of nicely baked flour, the aroma of cardamom powder, the little burst of tutti-frutti in the mouth with every bite I took, that was heavenly…and No, I am not exaggerating!

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We all liked those cookies a lot, so I made up my mind to try baking them at home. It was a difficult task for me. But I was motivated enough for two reasons. One, I couldn’t get the taste of those cookies out of my mind. And second, because, I had never baked cookies at home and what could be better than baking these ones for my first ever cookies, which we all had liked so much.

So the project of baking tutti-frutti biscuit started. There were many trials before I could proudly present them in front of my family (yes, they are my biggest critic). Sometimes the tutti- frutti biscuit were baked too hard, other times they would just fall off crumbling. But I didn’t give up and finally I was successful in making them. I tried it with whole wheat flour.

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BASIC INGREDIENTS FOR KARACHI BISCUIT

1. Flour – I have made karachi biscuit both, with refined flour and whole wheat flour. The taste definitely differs, as per the choice of flour, but this choice I will leave up to you. We all do tend to pick up or try healthier versions of anything we like, and that’s exactly what I did too. This recipe I am sharing is with whole wheat flour.

2. Butter – You can use store bought butter with pre-added salt in it. A little bit of salt in every sweet dish actually enhances the sweetness in it. You can also use homemade white butter. In that case please add ½ tsp salt to the flour. Again, I have made these cookies with both types of butter, and the taste doesn’t differ much in this case.

3. Sugar – As for most of the cookies, sugar must be powdered for this recipe. It is easy to incorporate in the butter and flour if its powdered.

4. Aroma – For that amazing aroma, two main flavours are used in these karachi biscuits. Cardamom powder and rose flavour. You can take your pick, though, my favorite is cardamom powder.

5. Tutti-frutti – The candied fruits or tutti-frutti are a man ingredient of this Karachi biscuit recipe. They are just incomplete, if you miss them out. I like the little burst of taste given out by these candied fruits. In India, tutti-frutti is basically candied raw papaya.

Recipe Video

There are many healthy recipes made with whole wheat flour. Check out a few here;

• Banana Cake recipe, Wholewheat banana cake recipe
• Eggless chocolate cake, eggless cake without oven
• Eggless Brownie recipe

Detailed recipe of KARACHI BISCUIT

INGREDIENTS

Butter – 100 gm

Powdered sugar – 2/3 cup

Whole wheat flour – 1 cup + ¼ cup

Cardamom powder – 1 tsp

Tutti-frutti – ½ cup

Cold milk – as required

METHOD

1.Keep ready the whole wheat flour, powdered sugar, butter, tutti- fruity and cardamom powder. You can use, homemade butter also. In that case you will have to add ½ tsp salt to the dough.

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2. Using the hand blender, beat the butter till light and fluffy.

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3. Add powdered sugar and mix them nicely. The main idea here is to mix these two, without lumps and also to incorporate air in this mixture and make it little light. Using electric hand blender really makes this task simple. You can definitely use the wired whisk too, but then be ready for a good workout if you use that. While doing so, you will see that the butter will further change its colour and become lighter in shade.

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4. Now add the cardamom powder and tutti-frutti to this mixture. Mix lightly into the buttery mixture. Do not beat this mixture at all. Just mix using a spatula.

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5. Now add the whole wheat flour. Add the flour in batches. Mix it lightly and do not knead it. When you will mix it in the butter mixture it will look like a bread crumb mixture. It’s okay!! But do remember mix lightly.

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6. Now, you do not have to knead the dough. You just have to bring it together. Here, you can use 1 tsp of cold milk at a time and try bringing the cookie dough together. I used almost 4 tsp of cold milk to bring the dough together. You may use a little more or less, depending upon the absorbing powder of your flour.

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7. Roll it in the form of a big log using the cling foil or aluminium foil. Just try to make it a well-rounded log by rolling it lightly. Be careful enough, not to break your cookie dough log.

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8. Keep it in the fridge for about an hour.

9. Take out the cookie dough log from the fridge after about an hour and just check if it’s hard enough to be cut in to slices. Then using a real sharp knife cut the cookies of about half inch size or a little less than that. Do remember to cut all cookies of the same size as much as possible. This will ensure even and same time baking.

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10. Place the cookies on a greased plate, with little distance between them. Now Bake them in a pre-heated oven at 185 degrees Celsius for about 20 min. Time for baking may vary, as per your oven.

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11.They will be done when the sides of the cookies will be little brown but the center still soft. Do not overcook or you will end up with real hard cookies. Actually, the heat in the cookies keeps baking them even after you take them out. So, the soft center will become crunchy enough after you cool them outside for about 20 -30 mins. The cooling time is important.

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12. Do not touch the cookies before that. Let them cool off completely on their own, at the room temperature. This is important!!

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