These Persian Rice Cookies are part two of our Nowruz (Persian New Year) cookies mini series. You’ll find the Walnut Cookies and read more about Nowruz here. Today’s cookies, Naan-e Berenji, also known as Shirini Berenji are gluten free too and are made with rice flour. These Persian Rice cookies are so addictive, not too sweet but because of the very soft dough, has an almost melt in the mouth texture.
This is one of three recipes that I have from friends and it’s my favourite for its light, gone in a moment texture. I have to warn you though, not the easiest dough to work with because of its soft, sticky nature, but oh so yummy! I’ve not played around with this recipe, because, as mentioned, I have two more that are of a “sturdier” nature but this is definitely our favourite!
Persian Rice Cookies (Naan-e Berenji)
Ingredients
- 250 g icing (powdered) sugar
- 200 g salted butter
- 1 large egg
- 1 Tbsp rose water
- 300 g rice flour
- seeds of 5 cardamoms ground
- poppy seeds to scatter
- extra icing sugar for dusting hands
Instructions
- Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. This will take 3-5 minutes depending on the speed of your beaters.
- Add egg one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter will turn from rather runny to quite thick, like icing.
- Beat in the rose water.
- Fold in the flour and cardamom. The batter will still be fairly soft. Place in the fridge for a minimum of 6 hours or overnight to firm up and for the flavours to develop.
- When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 160˚C.
- Using your hands, form little balls with the dough, press them slightly and place on the baking sheet, giving an inch between each cookie. Dust your hands with the extra icing sugar every so often as the dough will get soft and sticky as soon as it warms up in your hands.
- If you like, using a table knife, a fork or cookie cutter, form deep little patterns on each cookie. The dough spreads and does not retain its pattern very well, unless you place the cookies in the fridge, which I don’t bother with.
- Sprinkle some poppy seeds in the middle of each cookie.
- If you want, refrigerate for 20 minutes before baking for about 10 – 14 minutes. 10 if they were not placed in the fridge. The cookies should still retain their light colour, no browning.
Notes
Start the day before you intend to bake them. The dough is very soft and sticky, dusting your hands with icing sugar as you roll the cookies into little balls in your hands will help the process.
I tried this recipe this past week and it didn’t work at all. I followed the recipe to a T and they melted into each other, making one big flat cookie. I can’t figure out what I did wrong. My mom says that it shouldn’t be the whole egg like you have listed and just the egg yolk. Is that true? So sad. I threw away three trays of cookies and didn’t have any for Naw Ruz.
Hi Ghaz, I’m really, really sorry to hear that. I feel terrible that you didn’t have any cookies for Nowruz. The only thing I can think of is the egg size. I must confess that large eggs in the UK are not particularly large.
I’ve edited the recipe to reduce it to 1 egg for now, but will make this recipe as soon as I find the time and ensure that it works.
If we’d only used egg yolks, the cookies would have been even softer.
Again, I truly apologise. I hate it when one of my recipes doesn’t work for my readers.
Can I use something else in place or Rose water? Is there any type of substitute?
Hi Elle, sure, you can just use vanilla as a flavouring. It works very well, and we sometimes do that too.
I think I like the idea of the mirror as much as anything I’ve read in a while. Thanks for that. And I have an inlaw that eats gluten free. I’ll be trying this the next time they come over.
Hey Stan, lovely to see you here. And I totally agree with you on that, what a lovely way to start a new chapter, by looking back.
These cookies are totally new to me..but I would love to give it a try:)
Thank you Shubha, lovely to hear from you here. Let me know if you do! x