Butter Biscuit. Butter Biscuit. Butter Biscuit.
How beautiful are those two words together? This pairing joins Cellar Door and Chocolate Pudding on my list of phrases that are most euphonic.
I have friends who’ll be celebrating Diwali on Saturday and these egg-less butter biscuits are just the treat for sharing. I also have a family member who is allergic to egg and I know she’ll appreciate a batch of these too! And my truism is that good friends share tears and laughter while great friends share calories.
I’ve partnered with Golden Cloud South Africa to bring you golden moments; simple bakes elevated with a tweak or two, magicking pure joy out of an everyday crumb.

Make your own golden moments and share them on the Golden Cloud Facebook page. You could win a Russell Hobbs cake mixer and claim the Golden Whisk of the Week title.
There’s an easy egg-less butter biscuit on the Golden Cloud Facebook page, so do check that out for a quick bit of baking therapy: https://www.facebook.com/GoldenCloudFlourSA
I add oil and cornflour to my batter for a slightly softer dough, but this is totally up to preference.

Egg-less Butter Biscuits (two variations)
Makes about 40 medium-sized biscuits collectively

Preheat oven to 110 degrees Celsius.

Base Batter:

250g Butter
¾ cup castor sugar
¾ cup cornflour
⅓ cup canola oil (or any neutral-flavoured oil)
2 cups Golden Cloud Cake Flour
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat butter and sugar until soft and white. Add oil and the vanilla extract. Once combined, add in the flour and cornflour until the mixture has just come together. The batter will be soft and creamy and easy to pipe. At this stage, divide your batter into two bowls.

Bowl One: Lemon and Rosemary Slims

Grind three small sprigs of rosemary with two lengths of lemon rind (this is to taste, add to your liking). Stir this into the batter, along with a teaspoon of lemon essence. Scoop batter into a piping bag and pipe rosettes onto your prepared baking sheet. Leave space in between as the batter will spread. (See tips below). Top each cookie with a small spring of rosemary. Bake until the colour just begins to turn. These cookies bake fast so do keep a watch on your oven.

Bowl Two: Cardamom and Pistachio Biscuits

Add ½ cup of ground pistachio, one teaspoon ground cardamom and an additional ½ cup of Golden Cloud flour to make a stiffer dough. Roll this dough out between two sheets of baking paper to a 50mm thickness. Cut out rounds and bake until the cookies colour slightly. Once the biscuits have cooled, dip in white chocolate, scatter with ground pistachio and a bit of gold food-safe shimmer.

Tips:
Chill your prepared dough before placing into the oven.
To check batter spread, test with one cookie. If the biscuits flatten out too much, add a little bit more flour to your batter to hold the fats together.
Whenever you add nuts to a biscuit batter, you are introducing oils, this is where extra flour helps to correct.