Savoury Biscuits - Turkish Tuzlu Kurabiye
This is my version of Turkish savoury biscuits Tuzlu Kurabiye, (it literally translates as salty biscuit). These can also be made with cheese & are perfect for pairing with your favourite cheese, but equally good snacked on alone.
Equipment
- Scales or measuring cups
- Measuring Spoons
- Large mixing bowl
- Large spoon
- Small measuring jug
- 2 Small Bowls (to separate eggs)
- Stand or Hand Mixer (not essential)
- Baking trays/sheets (2-3 large)
- Baking/parchment paper
- Cookie Cutters
- Pastry Brush (or Paint/Artist brush)
- Palette knife, or butter knife
- Cooling rack
- Timer or Phone Timer
Ingredients
For The Dough
- 125 grams Baking Spread or Butter (see note above, cubed & softened a little. (1 stick + 2 tsp, 4.5oz)
- 110 ml Oil (3¾ fl oz, under ½ cup)
- 1 ½ tbsp Vinegar
- 1 tsp Salt
- 10 grams Bicarbonate of Soda (2 scant tsps- below level of Baking Soda)
- 1 Egg Yolk (keep white for glazing on top)
- 3 tsp Icing Sugar (powdered sugar)
- 312 grams Plain Flour, approximately (2 ½ cups All Purpose Flour, 11oz approximately)
- 45 grams Mature Cheddar Cheese, cubed (1.5 oz, ⅓ cup Sharp Cheddar, optional, for half batch)
For The Topping
- 1 Egg white (from above with a splash of milk or water.)
- Seeds of choice (optional – sesame seeds, pumpkin, sunflower, Nigella seeds.)
Instructions
PREPARE THE SAVOURY BISCUIT DOUGH
- If using butter, weigh it out cubed & leave to soften a bit. But if you forget, or are short on time, why not try this hack I reviewed? Go to How To Soften Butter In About 12 minutes Video.
- When ready, add the baking spread/butter, oil, vinegar, salt, sugar & egg yolk to a large mixing bowl & give a good mix together.
- Now weigh/add in the bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) & give it all a mix through. Using the back of a metal spoon or fork, push down on the baking spread/butter to squash it into the other ingredients. Don’t be put off by the look of the wet ingredients. It will work out. See Photo 1 above.
- Next weigh in the flour very gradually until you get a very thick & smooth dough, like cookie dough. I add in 125g (1 cup) of flour at a time & in the end I added 312g (2 1/2cups). Different types of flour, where & how it’s milled, result in a variation in how much liquid it will absorb. Therefore there can be no exact amount of flour to add here. To tell if it’s the correct consistency, roll a smooth ball of the dough & flatten it with your hand. If you can do that without it falling apart or sticking to you, it’s ready. See Photo 2 above.
- Now cut out 2 extra large pieces of baking/parchment paper (approximately 40cm/15.5″ long). Give the dough a quick 5 second knead & form into a ball. At this point I also halved the dough to make two, with one half of the savoury cookies cheese flavoured. Flatten one half of the dough into a disc & place in the centre of the 2 sheets of baking paper. See Photo 3 above.
- Roll out the dough until you get a thickness of at least the height of a £1 coin plus a 1p on top (5-6 mm or ⅕ – ¼″). See Photo 4 above. Place the dough (with the paper), onto a tray in your fridge. Then chill the dough for at least 2 hours or overnight (you could also freeze it for about 45 minutes, after chilling for 15 minutes). This is a very important step, not to be skipped.
- For the second half of the dough, I added cheese Mature Scottish cheese/Sharp Cheddar). Place the cubed cheese in a food processor & blitz to large breadcrumb sized pieces. See Photo 5 above. Add cheese to the top of the disc of dough & knead whilst still in the bowl, just until all the cheese is distributed. Now roll out like before and chill in the fridge till firmer & easier to work with. Prepare your baking trays/sheets with paper.
CUT OUT THE COOKIES
- Dip the cutter(s) in a small bowl of flour, shake the excess and cut out as many biscuits/cookies as you can. It’s important to work quickly here. Place on the prepared baking tray/sheet & leave a little gap in-between each. See Photo 6 below.
- Once the first tray/sheet is filled, place in the fridge, whilst you roll up the scraps & continue to cut, and re-roll until all the dough is used up. Remember to place the filled trays/sheets in the fridge. Do the same for the second half of the dough. Take a note of the time you place the first tray in the fridge as you will be chilling for another 1 hour (or freeze for 30 minutes). See Photo 7 below of old pics, with different shaped cutters.
- Heat up the oven to 180°c/160°c fan oven/350°f/Gas Mark 4 to coincide with the end of the chilling time. Just before the oven is ready, use your egg white left over & very delicately, brush generously onto the tops of the cookies. Sprinkle or place seeds on top if desired. See Photo 6 & 7 above.
BAKE THE SAVOURY COOKIES
- Place in the oven, for about 14-16 mins until turning golden on top & around the edges. You can re-apply more egg white during baking if drying out and this will help colour them. You want the cookies to be set, but just a little soft inthe middle. See Photo 8.
- Remove from the oven & leave to cool on the tray/sheet for 5 mins. Meanwhile you can put the other uncooked cookies in to be baked. Then transfer very carefully to a cooling rack by using the baking/parchmentpaper. They are a very soft textured biscuit, so be very careful not to drop them. Leave to cool and then enjoy which ever way you want. Store in an air-tight container.
Notes
If making different sized savoury cookies, be sure to keep similar sized ones on the same baking sheets/trays so that they cook at the same rate.
For more details & photos, please see before Recipe card.
Print via this Recipe Card, with/without photos.
Makes at least 4 dozen depending on size & shape of cutter used.
Store in an airtight container (I prefer cake tins), for at least 3 days