Horchata + tiger nut biscuits = the ideal merienda?

I went on a tiger nut frenzy last week, as I made a batch of horchata and then I also turned the leftover “pulp” into “flour” for making biscuits. Absolutely ZERO WASTE! I was very pleased.

This time I used just tiger nuts. No cinnamon or lemon zest as in my previous attempt. And it tasted better than ever! So tiger nutty. I find it hard to describe this flavour; you have to try this type of horchata to understand how it tastes—it’s quite unlike Mexican horchata.

My friend and prestigious Horchata Connoisseur Belén has asked me to share the recipe for the biscuits, so here it goes!

Tiger nut biscuits

I used this recipe as my reference: Galletas de Chufa—you can use Google translate, or read on for my own interpretation.

Ingredients

  • 400 gr tiger nut flour
  • 200 gr butter at room temperature
  • 80 gr sugar

(adjust amounts according to the amount of flour you get)

Preparation

Once you finish squeezing the ground tiger nuts paste (as described in the horchata recipe), either spread the paste on an oven tray and let it dry for a while in the oven, at a very low temperature, or if it’s hot enough on our kitchen, let them dry out outside (covered with a cloth or something to avoid opportunistic insects having a go).

This is how they look like:

Tiger nut flour in a bowl
Tiger nut flour in a bowl

They weren’t 100% dry; they were still a bit moist but it was fine.

Mix them with the butter and sugar, and make a sort of homogeneous paste, but don’t overdo it. I mixed by hand.

Cover and place in the fridge for 30-45 minutes to cool down and harden. This will make it easier to shape the biscuits.

When the time has passed, turn the oven to about 180ºC (I used the fan function).

Then take them out of the fridge and start making balls and flattening them, and placing them on an oven tray lined with grease proof paper, while the oven warms up.

Once the oven has reached the desired temperature, bake the biscuits until they get golden. It took about 30 minutes for me, I suppose because the flour was a bit damp.

The result is a very soft biscuit. They taste very nutty and full of fiber (it might also help that I ground them quite coarsely at places). I enjoy them but my partner says they’re “a bit health foody” ?

Remember to place them in a box or something like a biscuits tin so they won’t get too soft.

There are other recipes on the internet that suggest adding nuts, cocoa powder and other sorts of variations, but I wanted to keep it simple as it was the first time I made tiger nut biscuits. Other recipes I found advised adding things such as cocoa powder, chocolate bits, nuts, etc, but the only thing I’d try to do is to make these biscuits harder. Maybe they need less butter, or something that binds them better (sugar? honey? this warrants more researching!).

Biscuit tin with biscuits on it
The stuff of dreams…

As a side note, one of our friends rebelled against our habit of keeping biscuits in a tin: he wants to see threads and pins and needles instead!

A glass of horchata and a small saucer with two tiger nut biscuits
Ideal merienda?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.