Nankhatai Cookies Form India Food

NANKHATAI, COOKIES FORM INDIA

Steps:

• Take a mixing bowl with the room temperature butter in it, add the powdered sugar to it and cream together till the mixture becomes light and fluffy.
• Sift all the dry ingredients (flour, cardamom powder, baking powder and salt) into a separate bowl.
• Add this to the creamed butter mixture little at a time and keep mixing. Knead it to form a soft dough. Cover the dough and let it rest in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (150 C). Make small gooseberry sized balls of the dough. Smooth the balls by rolling in between your palm, you can also use a cookie cutter to shape the cookies.
• Place each ball in a cookie sheet leaveing some space in between as the cookies will expand when it bakes.
• Press a pistachio or raisin or cashew or almond on top of the balls gently.
• Bake at 300 degrees for 12-15 minutes until the bottom of the cookies turn light golden brown.
• Remove from the oven and gently transfer the cookies to a cooling rack. The cookies will be very soft at this stage.
• After it cools completely, store in an air tight container for up to a month. Serve as a snack with a cup of tea.

CARDAMOM BISCUITS (NAN KHATAI)

Steps:

• Split the cardamom pods and remove the seeds. Pound the seeds to a powder in a pestle and mortar with 1 tsp of the sugar.
• Beat the butter until soft, then gradually add the remaining icing sugar and the ground cardamom. Continue beating until light and creamy, about 10 mins.
• Sieve the flour and gram flour into a bowl and whisk in the semolina and a pinch of salt. Stir into the butter and sugar in two increments. Gently bring everything together into a soft dough.
• Roll the dough into small, marble-sized balls with your hands and arrange, spaced out, on baking trays lined with baking parchment.
• Slightly flatten the top of each ball and press a whole almond or some chopped pistachios in the middle of each one. Chill for 20 mins.
• Heat the oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Bake the biscuits for about 20 mins or until golden. Leave to cool before storing in an airtight tin.