Osmania Biscuit Recipe, How To Make Osmania Biscuit Recipe

Osmania Biscuits are one of the most common yet very popular biscuit available in most of the local hotels, chai stalls and Irani hotels in and around Hyderabad/ Secunderabad region. From the exotic haleem to the lazeez biryanis to some very authentic and explicit sweet dishes, Osmania biscuit is also a hardcore Hyderabadi café snack.

Irani chai with osmania biscuit or single chai aur osmania biscuit is the colloquial way of hearing sounds around the café shops in Hyderabad. This is biscuit the best and most wanted accompaniment served with a single Irani chai or a cut chai. In the bustling streets of Hyderabad, there are dozens of Irani café when you find men hollering “ek single chai aur biscuit lana”.

When served a small plate of osmania biscuits with the chai, the biscuit is dipped into the chai and sucked into the mouth. The man takes a good amount of time relishing and savouring the osmania biscuits till it actually goes down along with the tea. The osmania biscuit is just mouth melting, full of flavours and gives a nice feeling in the palate while eating.

Legacy of Osmania biscuit

Like many other Hyderbadi recipes, Osmania biscuit too has a Nizami legacy. It is said that the biscuit is named after Mir Osman Ali Khan, the seventh Nizam as he liked the biscuits made in one of the popular restaurants in Hyderabad those days. People also say that a car especially from Nazari bagh used to fetch the biscuits for him. Almost delighted by this royal patronage, the owner of the hotel named the biscuit as ‘Osmania’ and the name still continued even after the Nizamian era is over.

Its taste

Osmania biscuit still holds its name and uniqueness in taste. It is a very soft tea biscuit made with a mix of all-purpose flour, custard powder and milk powder combined with butter - sugar mix flavoured with cardamom and baked with some glazing over the top with milk and saffron mix. This gives a nice lemony yellowish colour to the biscuit.The dribble of getting the actual taste from the osmania biscuit is; eating it with an authentic Irani Chai. When dipped into the tea, the taste of the biscuit just manifolds. Other popular tea time snacks are Irani samosa, dil pasand and bun maska, but Osmania biscuits are the fastest moving delicacy on the shelf.

Osmania Biscuit is a kind of Indian short bread with its traditional recipe which includes all purpose flour, butter, vegetable shortening, corn flour, milk, powdered sugar, condensed milk, and a little salt. Flavoured with cardamom powder for better taste!All the ingredients are mixed well and let to chill. Then the dough is rolled, cut into biscuits, glazed with milk for a nice colour, and baked for half an hour. The biscuits are served chilled and go perfect with tea.

How to make Osmania biscuits: Ingredients:

All-purpose flour      -           200 gms

Baking powder         -           ¼ tsp

Butter                         -           120 gms

Cardamom powder  -           ½ tsp

Custard powder        -           10 gms

Milk powder               -           10 gms

Saffron                       -           ½ gm

Sugar powder           -           80 gms

Milk                             -           20 ml Milk for glazing

Directions:

Take a bowl and add butter, sugar powder and mix well. Add little milk and mix again. Take another bowl, add all-purpose flour, custard powder, milk powder, cardamom powder, baking powder and mix well. Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mix and combine all the ingredients to make smooth dough.

Roll the dough into a thin sheet and cut them into round shape. Arrange the biscuits in the tray and pour over some saffron milk mixture on top. Drain off the excess milk mix and bake at 180 deg C for 15 minutes. Osmania biscuits are ready to eat. You could also try other popular sweet and salted biscuits like Nan khatai (sweet, crisp flaky Irani biscuit), Zeera biscuits, Salt biscuits, Tutti frutti cookies etc. Do try the Osmania biscuit, I am sure you will admire and make more.

You can also check on the below link for detailed recipe: https://www.vahrehvah.com/osmania-biscuit