Nankhatai / Narayan Katar / Eggless Cookies

My first memories of nankhatais are of the store-bought ones which used to be hard to bite into and that's how I thought nankhatais should be. Then my aunt started making them. Melt-in-the-mouth goodies with a subtle tinge of  golden brown on the otherwise off-white outsides which would assure you that they are baked just a minute longer - exactly the way I love them. During my last India trip my aunt packed some nankhatais for me to take to my in-laws' place. Guess who ended up eating most of them - ME!

My aunt gave me the recipe of these lovelies in grams for about 7 dozen of them! I did some rough conversions, scaled down the proportions and came up with the following cup measures. Luckily they came pretty close to how my aunt makes them but still need some tweaking.

Ingredients :

1 1/4 cup maida (all purpose flour)

3 tbsp besan (gram flour. If not available, replace with maida)

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup (packed) powdered sugar

6 to 7 tbsp (little less than 1/2 cup) fairly hot ghee

1/2 tsp cardamom  powder

Method :

Combine maida, besan and baking soda. Use a large sieve to sift them.

To the above, add powdered sugar and cardomom powder and mix well. Add ghee little by little and knead into a dough.  If it is difficult to knead, just push the dough to the side of the vessel, press with your palm and knead.

[The ghee should be hot but shouldn't burn your fingers. Do not pour ghee all at once. Add about a tablespoon at a time and knead into a dough. If the dough turns out too sticky you can refrigerate it for half an hour.]

Keep aside for about an hour. 

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC)

Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Make equal sized balls of the dough [ I used a table spoon measure to make the balls, that way you can make them equal sized].

Place on the parchment paper atleast 2 inches apart. Flatten a little [flatter ones have a better texture compared to round ones].

Bake for 19 to 20 minutes. Makes about 18 cookies.

Next time I meet Nandini Pachi, I'm going to get the exact cup measures of these beauties. Until then, enjoy these!