Homemade Tea Time Chai Biscuit

Chai Biscuit is a native phrase quite popular among Indians. The word meaning of chai biscuit is tea time cookies. But the term chai biscuit speaks how a typical Indian addresses an evening snack.

Many things will attract you to make these biscuits at home. First, they are effortless to make & bake. Secondly, you need very few ingredients. Third, each & every ingredient is readily available & within your reach. Lastly, the process is plain & simple without any complexity.

I guess the reasons stated above are enough to get you started. Hence, let’s begin with the basics.

Taste and Aroma of Homemade Biscuit for Chai

The taste is sweet & the texture is buttery smooth. Moreover, the biscuits will come out off-white with a brown shade at the bottom. Since we will be using sugar, our biscuits will be sweet. You can alter the taste from mildly sweet to extra मीठा.😋

There’s one more modification you can do. Skip the sugar and add salt for a salty taste. These biscuits will be a great addition to the tea time snacks menu for those who prefer नमकीन बिस्किट with कड़क मीठी चाय.😋

Speaking about aroma, you will get butter & smokey sesame seeds aroma. If you have ever roasted sesame seeds, you know what I am talking about. The fragrance is simply soothing. I had a similar experience while making sesame seeds ladoo, white til kachariyu & black til kachariyu.

You can further elevate the taste & aroma by adding essence. For instance, we have vanilla – a universally sorted essence. Besides, we also have rose water or kewda essence.

All these are magically aromatic & highly sorted essence in the baking industry. Try it.

What you’ll need to make the chai biscuit?

We need a total of six items to make these cookies. But, before that, let me tell something of high relevance. These cookies are to be made in butter & not in cooking oil. However, you can always do so but not here. Thus, here’s the list of ingredients that we need.

• Butter – To bake our meethi chai biscuit, we will be using unsalted butter. If you prefer adding regular salted butter, then it is okay. Just add a little more sugar. However, it will be heavy for your belly since we are using butter. Hence, if you are monitoring calories, then be cautious.
• Sugar Powder – As mentioned above, sugar powder attains a sweet flavour. Further, sugar will also aid the medium brown gradient of the biscuits at the bottom. It is because sugar starts caramelising under intense heat.
• Baking Soda – To make our biscuits light & fluffy, we will use baking soda, sodium bicarbonate. Soda will help the dough to rise to further baking soft biscuits.
• All-Purpose Flour – Maida is our base ingredient here. In short, we will be making all-purpose flour biscuits. If you prefer a healthy option, then replace maida with wheat flour. It will give you homemade digestive biscuits.
• Egg – They add structure & stability within the batter. Moreover, they also add moisture to the biscuits. Read the FAQ section to know the substitute for eggs.
• Black Sesame Seeds – The sesame seeds will add aroma & elevate the look of your biscuits. Those tiny black sesame seeds on the buttery surface will look simply superb.

That’s all you require. Isn’t it amazing that you need just a handful of items to make such delicious biscuits at home? This very reason attracts me towards baking my stuff at home.

TR’s extra shots to bake chai biscuits at home

The following tips are not just tips but lessons learned from a series of failures while baking biscuits at home. Please go through them thoroughly to avoid errors.

• Butter – Use unsalted butter to avoid the salty taste of chai biscuits. Although if using salted butter, then add a little more sugar. However, even if you don’t add sugar & still use salted butter, there’s no harm. Your chai biscuits will taste better.
• Chill dough – Chilling dough has its advantage in baking. It will prevent your biscuits from spreading out too quickly under intense heat. Chilling the dough helps the fat cool down. Moreover, biscuits made from chilled dough are much more flavorful.
• Chill before baking – Despite chilling the dough, it will take time to go in the oven/OTG. Because you will be cutting, giving shape & doing a lot more with the chilled dough. The heat of your hands will raise the dough’s temperature, making it lose again. You can cut the biscuits in the desired shape, lay them in the baking tray, & toss the tray itself in the fridge. After chilling, insert the tray directly in the oven or OTG. I have done this & it works pretty well. Try it.
• Melted butter – Believe me, there’s no harm in using melted butter to make a biscuit dough. Pop your dough & chill before baking. That’s it. We are doing this because melted butter makes loose dough. When you bake biscuits using loose dough, they spread & shatter in the OTG/oven.
• Cold butter – Using cold butter is recommended while kneading biscuit dough. The term cold doesn’t mean solid, and it means chilled. Solid butter will make the kneading process difficult. You will need a hand mixer or a stand mixer. Therefore, always use chilled butter.
• Wrapping the dough – While chilling, wrap the dough compulsorily in food-grade plastic wrap. If you toss the dough without wrapping, the surface will become hard & develop cracks. If there’s no plastic wrap, use a muslin cloth.
• Sugar – Although sugar is for sweetness, it weighs a demanding role in this recipe. We need powdered sugar instead of granulated ones, so it mixes easily. Whole sugar granules won’t melt in the dough. On the contrary, your biscuits will have caramel patches when it goes in the oven. Not only this, but the sweet flavour will be uneven in the biscuits. Keep this in mind & use sugar powder.
• Egg substitute – To make eggless biscuits use curd instead of eggs. One whole egg weighs approx 48-50 grams. Hence, take equal measure cured or add 1/4 cup curd for every egg. Do the maths is more than one egg.
• Essence – You can add essence for flavour & aroma. Vanilla, rose water, kevda, coffee, etc., are highly sorted flavours. Add them gradually.

Chai Biscuit FAQs

The following faqs are informative as well as educational. I hope you find answers to your queries here. If you don’t find an answer below, post your questions in the comments. Our experts will help you out.

Now that you know how to make tea time biscuits try them today. Let us know how was your experience.