These cookies are my adaptation of a biscuit (as cookies are called in England) that my dear mother used to make for us as kids in Mumbai. I’ve given my mother’s biscuit recipe a holiday twist, using the bright flavors, colors and textures of strawberries and pistachios.
The original biscuits go back years, originating in Africa. My maternal grandma, or Ba, moved to Uganda after she married my grandpa in 1948. Ba had a small, white countertop oven and her Ugandan housekeeper taught Ba how to make these biscuits, which Ba would bake whenever her family or anyone else came over. All her daughters, including my mum, learned to make them, too, and it has become a tradition in all our homes to always have these biscuits on hand. I love making them during Christmas and gifting them to friends in little packages.
Amid political unrest, my grandparents, along with their kids, migrated from Kampala, Uganda, to Mumbai on a ship in 1968. (A few years later, Ugandan President Idi Amin would order the expulsion of the country’s entire Asian population.) They had to take all their belongings with them, and they brought their little white oven, too. After my mum married my dad, the oven went to their new house, and it was in it that she made all our birthday cakes, dozens and dozens of cookies, souffles and many other delicious bakes. That vintage white oven served my mum well: She used it until the early 2000s.
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The biscuits became popular among our family and friends. My mother made them in different flavors using the same base recipe, varying them with cashews, cardamom, chocolate and pistachios. She even had bake sales featuring these biscuits, and they would always sell out!
I changed the recipe slightly to make a versatile dough infused with ground cardamom, incorporating strawberry and pistachio into separate batches. I combine the two doughs, roll them up into a log, slice and bake them. The cookie logs can be frozen and gifted with baking instructions as a fun holiday treat, or you can bake them and present them in a pretty tin. They are so pleasing to the eye — and the taste buds.
My absolute favorite way to eat these cookies is with masala chai.
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