I have made nearly 80+ cookies from around the world, but have never attempted our Indian cookie Nankhatai. Nankhatai is made with a mix of besan, semolina and maida which gives a nice flavour and crunch to the cookies. These are shortbread biscuits famous in India and Pakistan. The name is derived from Persian words, naan meaning bread and khatai meaning biscuits. In Afghanistan and Iran these are available as Kulcha-e-Khataye. (source: WIKI)
I made the cookies in two batches. The first one was baked at 175°C, which cracked so much. So for the next batch, I baked them at 160°C for more time and the batch was perfect. With slight cracks, these cookies were so rich and crisp and so flavourful. This is so much better than the cookies we make with butter and vanilla. This is so Indian with the ghee and cardamom and pistachios. I am so glad that I tried this. Sending this to Kid’s Delight – Cakes and Cookies hosted by Vidya and started by Srivalli.
Recipe Source: Nishamadhulika
Makes 3 Dozen Biscuits
Ingredients:
Maida – 200 gm
Besan/ Chickpea Flour – 50 gm
Sooji / Semolina – 50 gm
Baking Powder – 1 tsp
Powdered Sugar – 200 gm
Ghee – 200 ml
Cardamom Powder – 1 tsp
Pistachios
Procedure:
Preheat oven to 160°C.
In a bowl add powdered sugar, ghee and cardamom powder.
With a whisk cream them together.
Add the maida, besan, sooji and baking powder and mix to form a thick crumbly dough.
Take a small portion of it, roll it into a ball and arrange on a greased baking tray.
Add some chopped pistachios on top.
Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until the bottom is slightly golden.
Remove from oven and allow it to cool on tray for 10 minutes.
Gently remove the cookies from the tray and cool completely on wire rack.
Store in air tight jar.
Nankhatai Recipe
Ingredients
Ingredients
- Maida - 200 gm
- Besan/ Chickpea Flour - 50 gm
- Sooji / Semolina - 50 gm
- Baking Powder - 1 tsp
- Powdered Sugar - 200 gm
- Ghee - 200 ml
- Cardamom Powder - 1 tsp
- Pistachios
Instructions
Procedure
- Preheat oven to 160°C.
- In a bowl add powdered sugar, ghee and cardamom powder.
- With a whisk cream them together.
- Add the maida, besan, sooji and baking powder and mix to form a thick crumbly dough.
- Take a small portion of it, roll it into a ball and arrange on a greased baking tray.
- Add some chopped pistachios on top.
- Bake for 15 - 20 minutes until the bottom is slightly golden.
- Remove from oven and allow it to cool on tray for 10 minutes.
- Gently remove the cookies from the tray and cool completely on wire rack.
- Store in air tight jar.
This is part of the Bake-a-thon 2016
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This is one awesome healthy bake 🙂
All time favourite Nankhattais, excellent and prefect they looks Gayathri, feel like munching some.
So flaky and tasty looking khatais. Feel like grabbing some.
Love these melt in your mouth cookies. Classic and delicious.
Even I haven’t baked these cookies yet and are on my to bake list. These are classic Indian cookies. Yum!!
Can I use butter instead of ghee?
Yes, you can use. But ghee is the one which gives the cookies the desi flavour.
a classic cookie!! Looks delicious!
I love Nankhatai and yours has turned out so well!
Hello mam
Pls share the guidelines for baking cookies with OTG.
I have 52L morphy richards OTG.
Want to know about functions …both rods should be on or single rod with fan …lower rack…lots of confusions.pls help me..
Hi, use both filaments and bake in the middle rack. If the oven has a fan, switch it on that too.
Hi Gaythri
I made this Nankatai yesterday. It was huge hit in my home. The taste was so perfect. Thank you for such a nice recipe
I want to ask you can we replace maida with wheat flour?
If I want to make this nankatai using Nachani/Ragi flour with the same recipe how to do that? Plz help me
Thank you so much. I am so glad you liked it. You can use whole wheat flour instead of maida in this recipe. Use two tbs less flour. No other changes required. As for ragi, you can substitute half maida with ragi. Not sure how 100% ragi nankhatai will turn out.
Hi Gayathri
As you suggested I made wheat flour Nankhatai, they also came out very well. Infact wheat flour nankhatai was softer than maida one. My clients also loved it.
Also made ragi nankatai (half wheat and half ragi flour), they also came out very nice. Only I need 10 ml extra ghee for ragi one.
My next try would be Chocolate Nankhatai
Thank you once again for this super delicious receipes
That is wonderful. Thanks for sharing.
Hello Gayathri ji… was trying to make the nankhatai’s…I think the ghee used was very liquidy means not in semi solid state like yours so I after mixing all the ingredients I have not got a stiff dough as yours shown in the picture so I have kept it in the fridge to make it solid though I am able to make the balls but it is very soft balls so what can be done.please let me know
Refrigerate them again until they are quite firm. Bake them straight out of fridge.
Made these today Gayathri. They came out really well. The only steps I added was to grind the semolina since I didn’t have the fine variety. And after shaping the cookies, I chilled them for about 20 min before baking. It was melt in the mouth. Thank you for this.
That is wonderful Mitra. Thanks for sharing!