Tea Stall Cookies - Coconut Biscuits

 The "Tea Stall" is a meeting place for all sorts of people - school and university students, labourers, retirees - and they all come together to these nondescript and often nameless tea stalls for tea by the metre and snacks. These tea stalls usually have a big pot belly stove in a corner with the milk constantly on the boil - and churning out orders for coffee and tea. Along with coffee and tea is a choice of deep fried and baked snacks, usually made in advance and stored in big mason jars and glass display cases.  

My husband tells me that when he was at University, he would walk down to the Tea Stall with friends and they would share one cup of tea between two friends. It was a common practice among cash strapped students to share tea and it even had a term - "By Two" 

So he would order one tea, served in two cups - and a few coconut cookies to go with it and they sat talking and watching the waves crashing on the beach.

My friend's daughter who lives in the US was also reminiscing about the tea stall days and she hunted out this cookie recipe.  Both of us decided to try the recipe and compare notes.

I am not much of a baker as you know by now - and straight away I made the mistake of using caster sugar when I read confectioners sugar in the recipe. Nevertheless, the cookies turned out quite crisp and nice and my husband says the coconut ones reminded him of his Besant Nagar Beach days!

Recipe Credit: @Kannamma Cooks 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter at room temperature

1/2 cup icing sugar (I used caster sugar in error, original recipe calls for icing sugar)

1 cup plain flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons desiccated coconut  (Tip: Soften the desiccated coconut using 1 tablespoon milk before incorporating in the dough)

Method:

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the salt, vanilla and flour and mix until combined.

Take half the dough, roll it like a log and cover with glad wrap and leave in the fridge.

The log is about 10 cms in circumference and 30 cms long.

You can make it thicker, I guess.

I added the desiccated coconut to the other half of the dough and made that into a second log.

Put both the logs in the fridge for at least an hour.

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C and prepare two trays with baking sheets.

Cut the dough into 1 cm thick rounds and arrange them on the trays.  As they bake, the cookies expand and flatten and they look pretty awesome.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes till the cookies go golden. It is a good idea to rotate the tray half way through the cooking process.

Once they are cooked, leave them to cool completely before putting them in an air tight container.

The cookies are crumbly and soft and crisp at the same time with a touch of sweetness.  Perfect to have with a cup of hot chai or a nice coffee.  Makes approximately 22 cookies, 6 cm diameter.

Tea Stall Cookies make a great Christmas present too!