Diwali Nankhatai
Nankhatai was a favorite but was not made very often in our home. Mother had this electric round oven which has a glass top & whenever she'd bake these goodies the whole house would smell awesomely of ghee & we'd be drooling till the Nankhatais were cooler so we could dig in.
I remember, baking Nankhatai took preparation. Mother would order extra "Maida" than what we usually had on hand. She's order extra Ghee too. Mostly they were plain nankhatais but sometimes (if I remember correctly) she'd use cashews. So, yes.. She'd get things ready & on a lazy Sunday afternoon she'd bake them.
Nankhatai is a cookie. It is made using all purpose flour, sugar & some dry fruit or nut. This particular recipe is a slight twist & is inspired by many many recipes that I watched on YouTube. The cookies turned out to be perfectly baked & awesomely crispy yet soggy.. just what a Nankhatai should be like.
So here goes..My recipe for Nankhatai.. For this Diwali.. Remembering home.. Remembering the glass top electric round oven.. Remembering mother's recipe.. and making my own...
What I used
- 1.5 cups all purpose flour (Maida)
- 1.2 cup gram flour (Besan) - I used the fine ground kind. Coarse ground will not work
- 1 cup powdered sugar (I didn't have powdered so I took a cup of regular granulated sugar & dry ground it in the grinder & then used 1 cup of it)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1.4 tsp baking soda
- Cardamom powder (per taste) I used about 1 tsp
- 3/4 cup melted ghee + some more (So basically I melted 1 cup of ghee & used 3/4 cup of it & then some more may be a tbsp or two)
- Chopped Almonds - About 1/3 cup
- Whole almonds for garnish (As many as cookies you make)
Process
- Pre-heat the oven at 300 F
- Lay a parchment paper on a Baking sheet (very important)
- Make a soft dough using Maida + Besan + Sugar + Baking Powder + Baking Soda + Baking Soda + 3/4 cups ghee (I added additional 1 or tbsp ghee because the dough was not coming together)
- Then add in the chopped almonds & mix them all together
- Make small cookie balls
- Lay them on the baking sheet
- Garnish each cookie with 1 whole almond
- Bake the cookies on 300F for 45 minutes (My oven is the regular GE wall oven which comes with every house in the US). I checked the cookies to be browning even 15mins. At the end of 45th minute they were perfectly brown.
- Enjoy with hot tea.
Comments
Post a Comment