Rosettes

I have been in love with these crispy cookies since my childhood. Every year, mom used to make these cookies over Christmas. Our neighbour from southern India, gave all the neighbours this mould! Funny thing is, mom was the only one who was able to get the recipe right and thus, perfect perfect cookies every single time. Others would come to mom to find out her secret of getting this recipe right. Mom always used to tell them to get the oil hot enough and get the mould hot alongwith the oil. That simple! Still, all of them would come back screaming that their rosettes are sticking to the mould, they had to struggle to get it out of the mould and at the end, dump the batter in the kitchen sink! Growing up, I might have tried to make this (under mom's direction of course!) maybe once or twice. I always got tired of holding on to the thin stick of the mould, waiting endlessy for the oil to get hot enough so that I can start dropping the little cookies in it. Frustrating!


After having come down here in Canada, I always craved for these cookies. Mom brought the original mould from from my home in India and also, I found the mould from a Scandanavian store and I was so excited. Needless to say the unopened package sat somewhere in the basement for God knows how many years! I totally forgot about it and kept on asking mom to bring the mould from India so that we can make the rosettes. Finally, during my spring clean up, I found the package and thankfully, mom is here with me. So I asked her to make the cookies for us. She made the cookies and boy oh boy! Within a day, I had about 20 of them! Well, a cookie per year! Not bad eh?!


Rosettes
Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup rice flour
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups cold milk(or as required)
A pinch of salt
1 tsp cardamom powder
Oil for frying

How to:

Mix everything to a smooth batter with pouring consistency.
Heat oil to 375° F.
Dip the mould in the oil as well in order to get it hot enough.
Now dip the hot mould in the batter, you should hear the sizzle! That's the sign that the mould is hot enough. Make sure to go only half way up the mould.
Shake the excess batter off, place the mould in the hot oil.
The cookie will loosen itself. If not, use the skewer to loosen it up and drop it in the hot oil.
Make all the cookies this way.

Note: you've got to be patient! First few cookies won't come out easily. You might have to struggle to loosen them up. Just make sure to heat up the mould very good in the hot oil. I place the mould in the oil as soon as I start heating up the oil.