Whether you call it Melting moments cookies or Butter Cookies, these are deliciously soft, buttery, eggless cookies that are infused with homemade thandai (Indian spice mix) masala!
These are super easy to make, require few simple ingredients, and true to their name. It has a melt-in-your-mouth consistency that will have you coming back for more and has lots of amazing butter flavors. Trust me, once you taste it, you won’t be able to stop at just one cookie!
Melting Moment (Butter cookies) are hard to beat! These festival staples are delicious any time of the year and the best part is the dough can be made months ahead and baked off for an amazing on-demand treat!
I love the simple flavors and perfect crumb of the cookie. They’re light and not too sweet.
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Melting Moment Butter Cookies
Melting Moments (also known as butter cookies or even cornstarch cookies) are unleavened classic cookies consisting of butter, flour, cornflour, and sugar.
They are wonderfully buttery, melt-in-your-mouth, and don’t require eggs.
To give an Indian fusion twist to these classic cookies, I added Thandai Masala.
What is Thandai Masala?
For those unfamiliar with the term thandai masala, Thandai Powder is a versatile masala with the flavors of cardamom, saffron, rose and it is loaded with nuts.
Thandai is a traditional Indian beverage popular in the North Indian states of UP and Rajasthan and made especially for the festival of Holi. It has a cooling effect on the body and hence the name Thandai.
It is quite refreshing to drink and is loaded with some rich ingredients like dry fruits, seeds, and saffron.
This powder/masala is great to flavor your milk, use in desserts like cheesecake, kheer, rabdi, yogurt, cakes, and many more.
So this time around, I thought of infusing my simple melting moment cookies with thandai flavor for holi and you guys…..let me tell you, these are THE BEST cookies I have made so far!
The flavors are spot on!
These Thandai butter Cookies
- are eggless, easy to make, and quick– only 30 minutes of chill time
- made with basic pantry ingredients
- mega flavorful and festive with all the wonderful and aromatic spices
- super buttery and soft
- goes well with milk, chai, or coffee
Ingredients required
Here’s a list of ingredients you’ll need to make these cookies. You can find my recipe card at the bottom of this post for the complete list with their amounts.
For Thandai Masala,
you will need Cashew, almonds, poppy seeds, melon seeds, fennel seeds, saffron, black peppercorns, rose petals, and cardamoms.
You can find thandai powder in stores but it’s very easy to make home and freshly made thandai powder at home tastes much better than the store-bought ones.
If you have all the ingredients at home, you only need to grind everything in a spice grinder and done.
For other ingredients, you will need,
- Unsalted butter – Make sure it’s properly softened to room temperature before beginning. Take them out from the freezer a few hours before making them. Butter adds flavor, structure, and buttery goodness to each bite. Vanilla extract: If desired, you can use any flavor you want!
- Icing/powdered sugar – Using icing sugar instead of caster or granulated sugar makes for a more soft, delicate cookie.
- Cornflour/cornstarch – We’re using cornflour in this recipe to achieve a wonderfully soft texture. Cornstarch makes them so tender that they melt in your mouth.
- Plain/all-purpose flour – To make it a bit healthy, you can use whole wheat flour.
- Salt – By offsetting the sugar, salt adds flavor.
- Milk – I don’t usually add milk to cookies like this, but we need to thin out this cookie dough so it flows through the piping tip. You don’t need much, about 2 Tablespoons only. Skip the milk if you are not planning to pipe the cookies.
How to make Thandai Melting Moments cookies at home? Step by step process
Thandai powder
- To make the thandai powder, add all ingredients to a spice grinder.
- Grind until you get a smooth powder. Store in an airtight container and use as needed.
For cookies
Prep work –
Make room in your refrigerator for a baking sheet so the shaped cookies can chill for 20-30 minutes. Without chilling, the piped cookies may over-spread. If you chill the dough before shaping, the dough will be too cold/stiff to the pipe.
Line 2-3 large baking sheets with parchment paper or if you don’t have parchment paper, you can simply grease the baking tray.
Let’s make cookies
In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, cornstarch, 3 tablespoon Thandai Powder and salt. (image 1)
In another bowl, take butter and sugar, beat them for 2 minutes or until creamy and smooth. (image 2 to 5)
Add the flour mixture and mix it with a spatula until you get a nice soft dough. (image 6)
Now add in 1.5 to 2 Tablespoons of milk. Start mixing the milk gently with dough. You want a dough that’s creamy and pipe-able (but still thick), so you may need up to 2 Tablespoons of milk. The more milk you add, the more the cookies will spread so be careful. I recommend keeping the amount of milk small and using a large enough piping tip, like Wilton 1M. (image 7 and 8)
Add Wilton 1M Piping tip or any large piping tip to the piping bag. Spoon a little bit of dough into the piping bag and pipe a 1-2 inch swirl. The reason I suggest only a little bit of dough start is because the dough may still be too thick to pipe. If it’s too thick, transfer that dough back to the mixing bowl and add another ½ Tablespoon of milk. If the dough is creamy enough to pipe, continue piping the dough in 1-2 inch swirls, 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. See the video below for a visual if needed.
Chill the shaped cookies on the baking sheet for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
Bake the chilled cookies for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The cookies will spread like all cookies do, but not completely lose their shape especially if you chilled the shaped dough. If the cookies are smaller, they will take closer to 8 minutes. Keep your eye on them. They’re done when the edges lightly brown.
Remove from the oven and let it cool for about 10 minutes.
Thandai Butter cookies are ready. Enjoy a hot cup of chai or coffee.
Pro-tips and Notes
- Measure your flour correctly! Adding too much flour to the recipe is the most common mistake. The best and easiest way to measure flour is by using a scale. If you don’t have one then fluff your flour with a spoon, take it into your measuring cup, and use a knife to level it off.
- I have only used 3 of the thandai masala and stored the remaining powder in an airtight container for later use. It stays good for months.
- Do not beat the butter and sugar for too long or else they will spread while baking and lose their shape.
- Place the cookie dough in the piping bag. Start with a little bit of dough so you can determine if it’s creamy enough to pipe. If it’s too thick, it’s impossible to pipe and you’ll have to put the dough back in the bowl and add a little more milk.
- I highly recommend chilling the piped cookies on the baking sheet for at least 30 minutes before baking. Without this chill time, the cookies will likely lose their shape.
- The cookies straight out of the oven are soft. Let them cool a bit to crisp up. Do not over-bake them thinking that they are soft.
Quick FAQs
If you forgot to leave your butter out on the counter for a few hours don’t worry! Pop it into the microwave for a 10-second burst. Turn the sticks over and repeat once or twice until the butter has softened.
If you don’t want to use the microwave, try filling a glass with very how water, dump the water out and place it upside down on your counter over a stick of butter. In about 15 minutes your butter should be pretty close to room temperature.
I always prefer unsalted butter when making cookies. Because each brand of butter will add different amounts of salt to their butter. The best way to control the ingredient is to add the salt yourself.
A Kerry gold butter has a nicer more buttery taste but uses any brand you love.
Sure you can. Use any flavored extract like vanilla, almond, or orange instead of thandai powder.
Absolutely! For that follow this recipe of Classic Melting moment cookies recipe, add thandai powder and skip vanilla extract.
The cookie dough is thick, so I recommend using a large piping tip with about a ½ inch opening. The smaller the size, the harder it will be to the pipe. I highly recommend Wilton’s 1M tip. It still works wonderfully!
You can chill the shaped cookies on the baking sheet in the refrigerator for up to 2 days before baking. If chilling for longer than 30 minutes, cover with plastic wrap.
You can also freeze the un-baked shaped dough for up to 3 months. Bake the frozen shaped dough (no need to thaw) for an extra couple of minutes. Baked cookies, freeze well for up to 2 months.
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Thandai Melting Moment Butter Cookies
Ingredients
For Thandai masala (this will make 1 cup masala)
- ¼ cup – almonds
- ¼ cup cashews
- ½ teaspoon – whole black peppercorns
- 1 tablespoon – fennel seeds
- 1 tablespoon – poppy seeds (khus Khas)
- 10 – green cardamom pods
- 1 tablespoon – dried rose petals (you can use 2 to 3 drops of rose essence instead of rose petals)
- ⅛ teaspoon – saffron strands
- 1 tablespoon – melon seeds (magajtari)
For cookies
- 100 gram – all-purpose flour maida (¾ cup)
- 30 grams – Corn starch corn flour ( about ¼ cup)
- 113- gram – Butter ½ cup
- ⅛ teaspoon – Salt
- 50 grams – sugar around ⅓ cup room temperatured
- 3 tablespoon – thandai powder
Instructions
Thandai powder
- To make the thandai powder, add all ingredients to a spice grinder.
- Grind until you get a smooth powder. Store in an airtight container and use as needed.
Prep work –
- Make room in your refrigerator for a baking sheet so the shaped cookies can chill for 20-30 minutes. Without chilling, the piped cookies may over-spread. If you chill the dough before shaping, the dough will be too cold/stiff to the pipe.
- Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or if you don’t have parchment paper, you can simply grease the baking tray.
Lets make cookies
- In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, cornstarch, 2 tablespoon Thandai Powder and salt.
- In another bowl, take butter and sugar, beat them for 2 minutes or until creamy and smooth. Add the flour mixture in batches and mix it with a spatula until you get a nice soft dough.
- Now add in 1.5 to 2 Tablespoons of milk. Start mixing the milk gently with dough. You want a dough that’s creamy and pipe-able (but still thick), so you may need up to 2 Tablespoons of milk. The more milk you add, the more the cookies will spread so be careful. I recommend keeping the amount of milk small and using a large enough piping tip, like Wilton 1M.
- Add Wilton 1M Piping tip or any large piping tip to the piping bag. Spoon a little bit of dough into the piping bag and pipe a 1-2 inch swirl. The reason I suggest only a little bit of dough start is because the dough may still be too thick to pipe. If it’s too thick, transfer that dough back to the mixing bowl and add another ½ Tablespoon of milk. If the dough is creamy enough to pipe, continue piping the dough in 1-2 inch swirls, 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. See the video below for a visual if needed.
- Chill the shaped cookies on the baking sheet for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
- Bake the chilled cookies for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The cookies will spread like all cookies do, but not completely lose their shape especially if you chilled the shaped dough. If the cookies are smaller, they will take closer to 8 minutes. Keep your eye on them. They’re done when the edges lightly brown.
- Remove from the oven and let it cool for about 10 minutes.
- Thandai Butter cookies are ready. Enjoy a hot cup of chai or coffee.
Video
Notes
- Measure your flour correctly! Adding too much flour to the recipe is the most common mistake. The best and easiest way to measure flour is by using a scale. If you don’t have one then fluff your flour with a spoon, take it into your measuring cup, and use a knife to level it off.
- I have only used 3 of the thandai masala and stored the remaining powder in an airtight container for later use. It stays good for months.
- Do not beat the butter and sugar for too long or else they will spread while baking and lose their shape.
- Place the cookie dough in the piping bag. Start with a little bit of dough so you can determine if it’s creamy enough to pipe. If it’s too thick, it’s impossible to pipe and you’ll have to put the dough back in the bowl and add a little more milk.
- I highly recommend chilling the piped cookies on the baking sheet for at least 30 minutes before baking. Without this chill time, the cookies will likely lose their shape.
- The cookies straight out of the oven are soft. Let them cool a bit to crisp up. Do not over-bake them thinking that they are soft.
How to soften butter quickly?
If you forgot to leave your butter out on the counter for a few hours don’t worry! Pop it into the microwave for a 10-second burst. Turn the sticks over and repeat once or twice until the butter has softened.If you don’t want to use the microwave, try filling a glass with very how water, dump the water out and place it upside down on your counter over a stick of butter. In about 15 minutes your butter should be pretty close to room temperature.
What’s the best butter to use for the cookies?
A Kerry gold butter has a nicer more buttery taste but uses any brand you love.
Can I replace thandai powder with any other extract?
I don’t have a piping tip, can I still make these butter cookies?
Absolutely! For that follow this recipe of Classic Melting moment cookies recipe and add thandai powder and skip vanilla extract.Which is the best Piping Tips to Use?
Can I Make-Ahead of time?
You can also freeze the un-baked shaped dough for up to 3 months. Bake the frozen shaped dough (no need to thaw) for an extra couple of minutes. Baked cookies, freeze well for up to 2 months.
Nutrition
Warm Regards,
Dhwani.
Delicious and unique version of the classic melting moments! I didn’t have any piping material, so I just refrigerated the batter, rolled and flattened them, baked for 12 minutes. It made 18 small cookies. I added 2 tsp of 18% cream (not 1.5-2 tbsp, as I wasn’t piping).
The recipe called for 3 tbsp of the thandai powder, but in the instructions I can only see two of the 3 used. Am I missing where the other 2 tbsp goes? Anyway, I just used the two and it was very perfectly spiced I thought!
(note to author – milk isn’t included in the list of ingredients)
thanks for the great recipe!