Follow This Guide To Impress Guests With one of The Warmest, Most Flavorful indian desserts, Nankhatais

Nankhatai is like a traditionalindian dessert, round and scrumptious. It is more popular in the northern part of the country and is chewy and moist, often with nuts and other additions. It tastes a bit like a butter cookie, but is unique because of flavors like cardamom and other Indian spices that are added to it. It’s a comparatively easy dessert to make, and can be stored for a long time. It's perfect to serve alongside tea in the afternoons or even as a dessert after food. There’s a lot of room to customize flavors and toppings, and you can get as creative as you like. So learn the basics of making nankhatais and then experiment to your heart’s content.

Ingredients:

• 400 g all-purpose flour
• 80 g gram flour (besan)
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons sooji (fine rava or cream of wheat)
• 3 pinches nutmeg powder
• ½ teaspoon green cardamom powder
• 120 g Ghee (semi solid) or butter at room temperature
• 120 g sugar
• ½ tablespoon Curd
• 4 tablespoons milk – at room temperature or cold
• 10 almonds or pistachios or chironji (charoli), or any preferred nuts, optional

Directions:

In a grinder or blender, take the sugar and process it until it’s a fine powder.

Then add the ghee and mix it well with the sugar. Keep blending until all the sugar has dissolved. You should have a light and creamy mixture. Set aside.

In a bowl, sift the flour, besan, baking powder and baking soda. Sifting ensures that there are no big lumps and that everything mixes evenly. Mix well. Set aside.

Add curd to the ghee and sugar mixture and mix thoroughly.

Next, add the sifted dry ingredients to the ghee mixture. Add one spoon at a time, mixing constantly. Ensure there are no lumps and that the curd and ghee and holding the dry ingredients firmly and evenly.

Now it's time to add the sooji, cardamom powder and nutmeg powder to the ghee mixture. Mix all of it well together. Do not knead but mix well and collect into a smooth dough ball. If the mixture is too crumbly, add a few spoons of milk to hold it all together.

Pinch out small bits of dough from the ball. Roll them in your palms, flatten them slightly and then press almonds or other nuts on top of each surface. Or make a cross design with a knife or toothpick.

Place the dough biscuits in a baking tray, leaving some space between each so they can expand. Bake for about 25 minutes, until it's golden. Then remove and place on wire racks to cool completely.

Serve cool and store at room temperature in an airtight container.

Notes, tips and tricks:

It's also possible to make nankhatais in a microwave. Simply preheat the microwave for a few minutes and then microwave the biscuits for about 20 minutes in a microwave-safe platter. They will slowly turn golden brown and you will know that they are ready.

If you already have icing sugar or other fine sugar, you can use that instead of worrying about blending the sugar into a powder.

When mixing the sugar with the ghee, the ghee should not be too solid nor completely liquid. It should have the in-between consistency that it normally has at room temperature. 

Instead of the all purpose flour and besan, you can use whole wheat flour. In this recipe, the ghee is replaced with butter. Other than these changes, the recipe and steps remain the same.

You can experiment with a variety of topping and flavor options. Instead of cardamom powder and nutmeg, you can also add cinnamon powder, cocoa powder, flavored protein powder or some other spice. And for topping, instead of nuts, you can press in pieces of chocolate or biscuit, a fruit slice or some other addition of your choice. You can also add more flavor to the basic dough by adding in fruit chunks, biscuit pieces, tooty fruity, or some other chewy addition. It's important to remember that since this item is going to get baked, you can add anything and it will get well incorporated. Imagine bright pink strawberry nankhatais or tangy yellow lemon nankhatais. The possibilities are truly endless.