Whole Wheat Nankhatais

Being brought up in Mumbai its not a surprise that we were introduced to the “melt in mouth nankhatais” at a very early age. During Diwali time, many of my neighbours would get it baked from local bakeries. It was a trend to give these nankhatai dough to local bakeries and they would bake them at a very nominal rate and give it back to us. So, when we bought our oven, the first thing that came to my mind was whether I can bake these nankhatai at home. But somehow I never bothered to try it at home. My hubby and Neha are not too fond of munching snacks. They prefer proper meals and dont prefer in between nick knacks. So these ready to eat stuffs which you generally see in almost every household is missing in our family. Neha prefers to eat stuffs freshly made for her evening snack and not something straight from the dabba. So after I joined HBG, I happened to see Subashini Murali’s post of nankhatai. I tried it and wow! it was really melt in the mouth texture. Since then I have tried numerous variations and this is one such by replacing apf by whole wheat flour.

Ingredients:

• Whole wheat flour 100 gm
• Rava/Semolina 50 gm
• Besan/Bengal gram flour 50 gm
• Salt a pinch
• Cardamom powder 1/2 tsp
• Sugar 1/2 cup or as reqd
• Baking powder 1/8 tsp or a pinch
• Baking salt 1/4 tsp
• Ghee 1/2 cup or as required
• Pista and almonds as required

Notes:

• Chop or grate the pista and almonds and keep them aside.
• Lightly roast the whole wheat flour, rava and besan till the raw smell of the flour goes off.
• Sieve the flours with the baking soda and baking powder 2-3 times.
• Powder the sugar along with few cardamom seeds till its fine. Add all the ingredients and form a dough.
• No need to knead, just bring everything together and combine well. Keep the dough in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes.
• Shape as desired and sprinkle grated nuts on top.
• Keep these on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake in a preheated oven at 160 degree celsius for 18-20 minutes.
• Cool on a wire rack and store in airtight containers.

Notes:

• Take the nankhatais out of the oven when the sides turn golden in colour. Do not over bake them.
• They will be very soft and crumble when hot. Handle them very gently.
• The proportion of rava and besan can be varied as per your choice.
• You can add 2 tbsp cocoa powder to the flour and get choco nankhatais.
• If the dough appears too dry, you can add 1 more tsp of ghee.
• For the exact texture of nankhatais, use apf instead of whole wheat flour.