These Persian chickpea cookies are effortless to make and incredibly tasty! Only four ingredients.
These cookies are of particular importance to me. Lovely childhood memories! I still remember the feverish activities in the house before the Norooz – the only thing I cared about was just these cookies! I knew where my mother kept these, and then I did errands there! Ate no matter how much – my mother was surprised that there was so little left.
We have baked these cookies for ages in Iran. Usually, we bake them before the Persian New Year (Noroz) – but nowadays, people bake them all the time. Traditions are changing.
Baking these cakes is incredibly easy, with just four ingredients. The main ingredient is chickpea flour – but it is not “Swedish” or “Western” chickpeas! Instead, there are special chickpeas available in grocery stores that sell Persian foods. So you will find both the chickpeas (which we eat as nuts in Iran) and the chickpea flour in Persian food stores.
The secret lies in using clarified butter or ghee, which you find in well-stocked grocery stores, or you can make it yourself.
Apart from the chickpea flour, it is ground cardamom, icing sugar, and ghee, of course – that’s all! I love cardamom; therefore, I take a little more than others. If you are not that fond of cardamom, use 0,5 tsp instead of 3/4 tsp.
Under no circumstances should the cookies be too large! It would help if you have cookie cutters that are a maximum of 2 cm in diameter to punch these cookies; otherwise, the cookies will not stick together.
The absolute classic way to decorate the cookies is slivered pistachios. You keep it upright and then press it down very gently in the middle of the cookie before baking. If you want to make it easy for yourself, just put a slivered pistachio on top of the cookie.
Ingredients for 50 – 60 cookies
200 grams of chickpea flour
100 grams of ghee
100 grams of icing sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
Garnish
Slivered pistachios
Method:
- Set the oven to 150 ° (C)) – (300 ° (F) convection oven 25 degrees lower (125 ° C) and 43 degrees lower (257 ° F)
- Put the ghee in a big bowl. (Room tempered). Add the icing sugar, use a hand whisk and mix it well.
- Add the ground cardamom and continue whisking until everything is well mixed.
- Sift over the chickpea flour – knead with your hands until everything is incorporated or until you have a very smooth dough.
- Place a piece of plastic wrap on the kitchen counter and pour over the dough. Shape it into a square and put it in plastic wrap.
- Let it rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
- Take out the dough. Flour very little on the kitchen counter or baking sheet and roll out the dough to a thickness of 1.5 cm.
- Punch out the cookies and place them on a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Garnish with slivered pistachios.
- Continue until you have used all the dough.
- Bake in the oven for about 35 minutes.
Let cool completely before you start eating it. 😊
