Once you start baking your own cookies, the readymade stuff never attracts you. Even otherwise, if you read the list of ingredients on the cookie pack, one small cookie is packed with so much refined sugar and additives that you don’t feel like taking even a single bite.

Nankhatais are Indian shortbread cookies. Earlier when no ovens were available, these were baked on an iron pot. The prepared nankhatais were placed on a tava or metal plate. This plate was then kept on top of the iron pot and was covered with a metal dome. Baking has become easier with OTGs and microwave ovens. So even if you don’t have an oven at home, its easy to bake on the gas stove in a closed pan or pressure cooker.

This recipe is very simple and easy to make. I avoid adding baking powder or soda to the cookies. So the success of these cookies depends upon how you cream ghee/butter and sugar. This is one very important step.

Gram flour is packed with proteins and is rich in complex carbohydrates. Its glycemic index is low and it is full of dietary fibre. Of all the flours that I use, gram flour is the most favourite due to the nutty taste and earthen flavour. This is one reason I wanted to bake these cookies. And believe me, you too will like them more than the whole grain nankhatais.

To make the cookies more nutritious, I have added ground almonds. You can replace almond powder by gram flour.Khandsari sugar can be easily replaced by any other type of sugar.

Gram flour Nankhatais

Glutenfree, melt in the mouth Indian shortbread cookies

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 15 mins

Cook Time 15 mins

Total Time 45 mins

Servings 11 cookies

Ingredients

  

• 3/4 cup Gram flour
• 3 tbsp Powdered almonds
• 2 tbsp Tapioca flour
• 1/3 cup Powdered khandsari sugar
• 1/4 cup Ghee or clarified butter
• 1/2 tsp Cardamom powder
• 1 tsp Pumpkin seeds

Instructions

 

• Take ghee and powdered sugar in a big bowl. Cream it with a hand whisk until its fluffy and white.
• Sieve gram flour and tapioca flour. This helps to aerate the flours and make them lighter.
• Add flour and powdered almonds to ghee sugar mix.
• Add cardamom powder too. Make a dough. If it's not coming together, add a tsp of milk.
• Rest the dough for 15-20 minutes. The resting time makes the cookies more flavourful.
• Preheat the oven at 150 C for 10 minutes.
• Divide the cookie dough into 11 equal parts.
• Make a ball of each part and press it between your palms to flatten it. Place the nankhatais on a parchment paper-lined baking tray.
• Garnish with chopped nuts or pumpkin seeds.
• Bake them at 150 C for 18-20 minutes or until the edges start to brown.
• Leave them on the baking tray to cool as these are glutenfree cookies. They may crumble if you try to pick them up before cooling.
• Cool and store them in an airtight container.
  

Notes

Almond powder can be made easily by grinding the almonds in a mixer grinder. Avoid over grinding.

Ghee/clarified butter can be replaced by an equal quantity of butter.

I had kept the ghee in refrigerator 15 minutes before I started baking to bring it to a semi-solid state.