Biscuit Recipe: Best Loved Easter Walnut Biscuits

I'm late again! Yesterday was Easter Sunday, 31st March 2013, yet I managed to have time to bake some delicious Walnut Easter Biscuits today since it is my off day. Anyway, it was a much relaxing day compare to yesterday because we had to attend church service, visit some friends and join the Easter Day kids activities...the kids were having a hell of a time while adults have to watch them by the side. By the time we reach home, we were totally worn out !

Making Walnut Easter Biscuit was quite a simple affair and easy even without using a cake mixer. It consists of sunflower oil, walnuts, vanilla, castor sugar, chopped currants or cherries of your choice, an egg and plain flour. You could substitute the nuts with any other nuts that you like such as cashew nuts, peanuts, hazelnuts or sunflower seeds.

The method of mixing the dough is almost similar to Sugee Cookies or Sugi Cookies. Just mix all the ingredients into a mixing bowl except for vanilla essence and mix the dough by stirring it with a wooden spoon into a slightly stiff dough is formed.

I was worried that my Easter Walnut Biscuits would come out hard as you can see the quantity of sunflower oil was relatively little compare to other cookies. Amazingly these Easter Biscuits came out nicely round, flat and crispy which is similar to Chocolate Chip Cookies. If you leave a little space in between each biscuits when baking, it truly does help to avoid them from sticking to each other as the biscuits would expand or spread out it's size during baking process.

Besides that, you may be surprised that these biscuits taste sweet even though the amount of sugar used is quite little. The secret to this tasty biscuit is the icing sugar that absorbs into the biscuit’s surface when it cools off. It is sweet on the outside and crunchy for the inner texture.

The smell of toasted chopped walnuts risen from the Easter Biscuits that filled up my kitchen was awesome.The crunchy and chewy texture of wonderful combination between chopped walnuts and currants result to enjoyable chewing snack for any occasion all year round. It is not necessary to bake Easter Walnut Biscuits during Easter Day only. You could bake them anytime when you feel like exercising your jaw. Suitable during festive seasons such as Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Children's Day or even tea-time snack.

Cook time stated is based on the 1st batch. It will take approximately 15 minutes to bake each batch. So, if you have to bake 6 times, Hence, it will take you 1.5 hours to bake 48 pieces of Easter Biscuits.

I chose raw walnuts because I had these in my kitchen. Do you realize that walnuts look similar to two halves of a brain? These delicious walnuts are rich in fats and protein. They are also a good source of phosphorus, vitamin B and D. I mean if you compare to groundnuts, these two head nuts are far better than those.

I toasted the walnuts in a whole for 5 minutes in the toaster. They came out super hot and crunchy even before I bake them! Be careful when you remove the walnuts from the toaster as you may burn your finger. Use a pair of chopsticks to pick them up and transfer to a bowl. Chop them into thin slices or cubes, whichever pattern you prefer. I chose big slices as I love the crunchy taste.

If you have dried fruits such as raisins, currants or cherries, add these fiber fruits into your biscuits for more nutrition. I love nibbling raisins when I feel like eating some snacks. Raisins help to reduce constipation and easy bowel movement for me.

You need not wash these dried fruits. Just chop them into small pieces of cubes , approximately a handful will do. Add them into the batter and mix well so that the raisins, currants or cherries do not clump together.

This Easter Walnut Biscuit is best loved in our household. Easy to bake and now too sweet yet crunchy. This is the easiest biscuit baking session I had ever done. Just add the chopped walnuts, sunflower oil or melted butter, castor sugar, chopped currants or whatever dried fruits you prefer and an egg together in a big mixing bowl.

Now, when you need to stir all the dried ingredients with the flour, you may find it a little stiff to turn the wooden spoon or stainless steel fork around the batter. Just mix around with a little strength until all the batter are all well mixed. Don't have to beat it and I don't think so you have much extra strength to do it either !

Use a teaspoon to scoop up a ball walnut size ball. Roll it around your palm and place it onto the lightly greased baking sheet. You could either use a the back of a fork to flatten the ball or simply use two front fingers to flatten the ball lightly.

Remember to allow some space in between each ball as it may spread out during baking time. You wouldn't want your biscuits to stick to each either, right?

Sunflower Oil

Originally, this Easter Walnut Biscuit calls for sunflower oil but you could substitute it with Canola Oil, SoyBean Oil or Olive Oil for health purpose. These oil are less in cholesterol and usually monounsaturated.

Besides that, butter or margarine is also a great choice to substitute the sunflower oil. Butter aids in sticking the butter mixture with the dry ingredients easily instead of producing crumbly dough. Furthermore, butter produces sweet smelling buttery aroma when freshly baked.

Everybody knows that butter or margarine is high in fats and unhealthy for us. However, you could choose low cholesterol and unsalted butter which may cost a little more than the usual.

I chose “Anchor brand as it comes in 227g with a convenient paper packing. Of course they are many other brands with almost the same pricing but I prefer this brand as it is light, low in cholesterol and unsalted too.

Margarine has the highest fats and not suitable for spreading on the bread. Use it mainly for baking purpose as it is cheap and does not need any refrigerating compare to butter.

If you wish to cut down all the unhealthy fats, use Crisco vegetable shortening as it is low in cholesterol too, low in calories and not oily at all.

It has less than 50% saturated fats than butter, which means it is healthier and taste almost the same as butter.

It is suitable for baking cookies and cakes, the color of the batter is slightly lighter than normal salted butter.

The batter turns out not so sticky or goey. Perfect choice for healthy diet.

NUTS

Now if you are short of walnuts, you could substitute it with any other crunchy nuts that you have in hand. The best choice would be sunflower seeds, cashew nuts, pecans, hazelnuts or chopped ground nuts without the skin. Remember to toast the nuts before you mix them into the batter. Otherwise, they may taste raw and not crunchy. The quickest way to toast your nuts is to toast them in the small toaster ( that you usually toast bread, muffins, etc ) for at least 4-5 minutes. Chop them while the nuts are hot and quickly add them into the batter. If you planned to decorate the chopped nuts into the surface of your biscuits, leave them in the toaster to keep the temperature warm and crunchy.