Sooji Tricolour Little Heart Cookies | Rava Heart Cookies | With making of Natural Food Colours

Ding Dong! Independence day special cookie post is coming for you. 😇 This is yet another cookie post in our blog and this cookie is the crunchy version with Sooji (or Rava) as the base.



If you are a regular reader of my blog posts, you could notice that cookies from my handy cookbook are made without all-purpose flour (or maida) and white sugar. As I prepare for my kid, unhealthy options are strictly prohibited in my kitchen. But you know a thing? I still feel comfortable to play around with the baking & cooking recipes though maida owns a crown playing a base role in myriad recipes in the culinary world, especially in the baking world.

If you are a new reader, I suggest you explore other healthy cookies from my cookbook:
Fresh-Fig wheat cookies - Crispy version
Bajra Butter Cookies - Thin & Crispy version
Cakey Fruit & Nut Wheat Cookies - Eggless & cakey version

When coming to cookies, what we use and how much we use is an important fact which would determine the cookie texture. So, while swapping white sugar with jaggery powder, too much consciousness should be put on the cookie ingredients to get a right textured cookie as the property of white sugar and jaggery powder are completely different.

Making cookies may be an art, but making a perfect cookie with healthy ingredients is a true success in my perspective which we can offer our loved ones guilt-free. Independence day is coming and what I have had in my mind is to prepare something that reflects my love for India. There comes this idea of tricolour cookies with my favourite heart shape. Sooji heads up for the white colour in the flag, and what about Saffron and Green?

Again, I never use artificial food colours. When nature could lend a beautiful colour tint to the cookies, why should we seek an unhealthy option to colour the cookies? I could make Saffron from fresh carrots and Green from healthy Spinach right?

Do natural colour dyes change the taste of the cookies?

• Obviously, no. The natural food colours used in the recipe is just less than a tablespoon which could possibly not show off their original taste.
• Natural colour dyes that we prepare adds colour to the cookies, adds a little health benefit leaving the taste unchanged.
• Other than the colour, natural food colours leave not any traces of carrot and spinach in the cookies.

So, this would be an easy and useful post showing the making of Natural food colours 'Saffron and Green', making of cookie batter with Sooji, an art of shaping cookies into little hearts and baking of cookies in both oven and stove-top.

Do cookies deviate from the original colours while baking?

• No.
• Cookies may turn brown when baked on a higher temperature. So, slow baking at low temperature is the answer to get the perfect tricolour cookies.
• Also, keep in mind that overbaking makes the cookies go very hard.
• I skip baking soda in the recipe as my cookies just came out light and crunchy even without it. If you feel like the cookies are dense, a pinch of baking soda could be added in the recipe to make them right.

Cold butter, Soft butter or Melted butter?

• Cold butter or butter that comes straight from the fridge would be great in giving flakiness and crispiness to the cookies and so, I add cold butter in this recipe.
• Soft butter would also work for this recipe but would lift the cookies while baking changing the shape and colour tone of the cookies.
• Melted butter is not the right choice for the crispy version of cookies as they tend to make the cookies soft, chewy or cakey.

Which sugar to use?

• Jaggery powder which I used to pick regularly would change the white colour to pale brown which we don't want in the tricolour game. Also, jaggery tends to spread while baking and hence could change the shape of the cookies. So, jaggery is not the right choice for this recipe.
• As I want white colour in the cookies, I go for powdered sugar prepared from the rock candy. You could use powdered sugar prepared from the organic sugar as well. 

The inviting natural tricolours of an Indian Flag, the heart-melting shape of the cookies, and the light & crunchy texture of the cookies would make you say, it's too much delicious. There is a bit long procedure involved in the recipe and so, I sign off here. Let's move on to the natural food colour making and cookie baking procedure.

⏲ Preparation Time: 30 minutes (including the making of natural food dyes)
⏲ Freezing Time: 2 hours
⏱ Baking Time: 30 to 35 minutes per batch (approx)
🍪 Yields: 20 to 24 cookies

Sooji Tricolour Little Heart Cookies

& Making of Natural Food Colours

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A light, crispy and crunchy little heart cookie prepared with Sooji as the base, with the inviting tricolours of an Indian flag made from the natural food colours reflecting the love for India.

What to Use?

For Natural Food Dyes:

• Carrot - 2 (medium)
• Fresh Spinach leaves - a handful
• Water- 2 cups

For Sooji Little Hearts:

• Sooji (or Rava) - 1 cup (or 120gms)
• Powdered sugar - 1/2 cup (or 60gms)
• Salt - a pinch
• Cold butter - 50gms
• Natural food colours (Saffron & Green)- 1 tbsp

Steps Involved:  
For Making Natural Food Colours:

• Extract and boil the juice of 2 carrots and collect the orange colour floating on the surface to get the Saffron colour.
• Blanch and grind spinach leaves to a paste to get the natural green food colouring.

For Making Cookies: 

• Powder the Sooji and add it to a mixing bowl. The powdered sooji need not be very fine in texture.
• Powder the organic sugar or rock candy and add to the bowl.
• Add a pinch of salt and mix the dry ingredients.
• Grate 50gms of cold butter to the dry ingredients and mix until they resemble bread crumbs in texture.
• Partition the crumbled mixture into 3 equal portions.

• Add natural saffron colour from carrots to one portion and bind to form a saffron dough.
• Add a teaspoon of water to the next portion of dough and bind to form a white dough.
• Add some natural green colour from spinach to the last portion and bind to get a green dough.

• Make the three portions into squares and stack the tricolours with white in the middle, wrap in the plastic wrap or butter paper and freeze for at least 1 hour.
• After an hour, roll the dough into a square sheet of 1/4 inch thickness. Start to roll the sheet carefully from both sides. When both sides reached the middle, sharpen the back part of the rolled cylinder using hands to get a heart-shaped cylinder.
• Wrap the heart-shaped cylinder with a plastic wrap or butter paper and freeze for an hour.
• After an hour, cut the heart cylinder into many little hearts. If the shape is not proper, no worries, you could shape them into perfect heart cookies.
• Bake the cookies in an oven for 30 to 35 minutes at 150-degree Celcius.
• For Stove-top baking, bake the cookies at very low flame for 30 minutes.
• Get the cookies cooled completely before stacking them into an air-tight jar.

Visual Treat: 

 Video link for "Sooji TriColour Little Heart Cookies" post: 

https://youtu.be/_wGXx7bbp-o

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For comforting the easy understandability of the recipe, the step by step detailed procedure along with the picture is shown below:

Step-by-Step Procedure with Pictures

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How to Make?

For Making Natural Food Dyes:

Saffron Colour:

• The beta carotene present in the carrots gives the vivid orange pigment to them. And here, we are gonna extract that orange pigment from the carrots. Without peeling, just wash and cut the carrots into pieces.

• Firstly, grind the pieces with no water. Then, add half a cup of water to it and grind again to get the carrot juice.

• Pass the ground carrot to a colander and filter the juice completely. You could save the carrot residue for some other recipe.

• Transfer the carrot juice to a pan and boil it.

• Once the juice has come to boil, the beautiful orange pigment from the carrots would start to float on the surface.

• Collect the orange pigment from the surface and our saffron colour is ready! You could wait until the water evaporates and the orange pigment is what gets leftover at the bottom.

Green Colour:

• Pour water to a pan and boil the water.

• Turn off the flame and blanch the spinach leaves by putting them in the hot water for 2 to 3 minutes.

• After 2 to 3 minutes, the spinach leaves would look like this.

• Drain off the excess water from the blanched spinach leaves.

• Grind the blanched spinach leaves to form a paste. The green paste is the natural brilliant green colour we get for the cookies. As we have blanched the spinach leaves, the flavour would not get revealed in the cookies.

Making of Cookies:

• Take a cup of Sooji. Any variety of sooji (fine or coarse) could be used for the recipe. I take 120gms of Sooji (or Rava) here. Grind the Sooji in a mixer jar. It need not be very fine after grinding. The coarse particles would give crunchy feel in the cookies. Pass through a colander to skip the lumps if present.

• Take half a cup of powdered sugar. I use powdered rock candy. You could use powdered sugar prepared from the organic sugar. For measurement, measure the powdered sugar and not the coarse one. Pass through a colander to get rid of the lumps present.

• Add a pinch of salt to the same mixing bowl.

• Mix well the dry ingredients with a spoon or whisk.

• Take a cold butter straight from the fridge which measures about 50gms. Grate the butter into the mixing bowl. Grating helps in evenly distributing the butter. Mix the butter well with the dry ingredients using the hands. The butter should get evenly distributed throughout the cookie batter.

• The batter looks like crumbles at this stage. Partition the crumbled dough into 3 equal portions.

• Take one portion of the dough and add a teaspoon of water to it. Bind well to get the white portion of the Indian flag.

• Take other portion of the dough and add saffron natural food colour to it. Bind the portion to get saffron-coloured dough portion. Just bind the dough and don't knead more.

• Take the last portion of the dough and add a tablespoon of natural green food colour to it. Bind the portion to get the brilliant green-coloured dough.

• Now see, how beautiful the tricoloured dough is.

• Make all the portion into 1-inch thick squares and stack them keeping the white in the middle.

• Wrap the stack with a plastic wrap or butter paper and freeze for about 1 hour. The freezing time is mandatory which helps to hold the perfect shape while shaping the cookies. Without freezing, the dough would be loose and shaping would be a difficult job.

• After an hour or so, unwrap and roll the stack into a thin sheet of 1/4-inch thickness.

• Roll the thin sheet from both sides carefully.

• When both sides reached the middle, just sharpen the back part of the cylinder to get the heart-shaped cylinder.

• After shaping, the batter should look like this.

• Wrap the heart-shaped cylinder in a plastic wrap or butter paper, and freeze for an hour. This freezing is also necessary to hold the shape while cutting the cookies into little hearts. Without freezing, the dough would be too soft and when we try to cut, it would lose the shape.

• After an hour, unwrap and cut the frozen heart-coloured cylinders into many little hearts.

For Microwave Baking:

• Line a baking tray with butter paper and arrange the cookies in the baking tray.

• These cookies won't rise and fluff up or change the colour while baking. Preheat the oven for 10 minutes at 150-degree Celcius and bake the cookies for 30 to 35 minutes at the same temperature.

For Stove-top Baking:

• Preheat sand or salt for 10 minutes on a medium flame.

• Place the cookies on a lined plate and bake them for 30 to 32 minutes on a low flame.

• Cool the cookies on a cooling rack.

• The light, crunchy and crispy tricoloured little hearts are ready!

Visual Treat:

Video for "Sooji Tricolour Little Heart Cookies":

 Tips:

• Always keep in mind while making cookies, do not over knead the cookie batter.
• Spread butter paper on the work surface which prevents the dough from sticking.
• Freezing the dough is an important thing which helps to harden the dough for a little while. Roll and cut the cookies when the dough is in the frozen state. Otherwise, the cookie shape may get ruined.
• Don't worry if the cookies are not in perfect heart shape. It could be shaped after cutting the cookies.
• Do not bake at high temperature as the colour may turn brown which we don't want in our tricolour cookies.
• Do not over bake the cookies as they tend to go hard.

I love my Nation!

Enjoy these super Crunchy little hearts with a cup of Tea!