Chocolate Nankhatai
Nankhatais are nothing but shortbread biscuits which finds its origin in the Indian subcontinent. It’s derived from two words “nan” meaning bread and “khatai” meaning biscuits. From the wiki: Nankhatai is believed to have originated in Surat in the 16th century, the time when Dutch and Indians were the important spice traders. A Dutch couple set up a bakery
in Surat to meet the needs of local Dutch residents. When the Dutch left India, they handed over the bakery to an Iranian guy. The bakery biscuits were disliked by the locals. To save his business, he started selling dried bread at low prices. It became so popular that he started drying the bread before selling it. With time, his experimentation with bread ultimately gave birth to nankhatai.
Traditionally, Nankhatai is made from refined flour or maida, baking soda, powdered sugar, cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder, curd, and pistachio. It may be garnished with olive oil, chopped pistachio and icing sugar.You can check out the traditional nankhatai recipe with all purpose flour, wheat flour, using custard powder in the blog. This is another version, using unsweetened cocoa powder, wheat flour, chickpea flour and clarified butter or ghee. These are absolutely melt in the mouth and due care has to be exercised in dealing with these biscuits. They are very delicate and crumbly. Please do try it for Diwali and share your feedback.
I have used a 240 ml cup. Chocolate extract can be replaced with vanilla extract. You may add a teaspoon of coffee powder for an intense chocolate flavour. Check it after 18 minutes or so. Do not overbake. As each oven behaves differently, adjust time and temperature accordingly.
Ingredients:
- Whole wheat flour 125 gm (1 cup)
- Chickpea flour 25 gm
- Cocoa powder 2 tbsp
- Salt a pinch
- Ghee 1/2 cup
- Sugar 100 gm (1/2 cup)
- Chocolate extract 1/2 tsp
- Almond slivers for garnish
Method:
- Sieve the wheat flour, chickpea flour and cocoa powder along with a pinch of salt for 2-3 times.
- Grind the sugar into a fine powder.
- Cream together the ghee and sugar till it’s pale and light.
- Add the chocolate extract and mix.
- Now add the dry ingredients slowly into the ghee-sugar mixure.
- Mix the ingredients to form a dough. Do not knead hard.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment.
- If the dough is too loose, refrigerate the dough for few minutes so that it becomes easy to handle it.
- Make small balls of the dough and flatten it slightly in your palm.
- Place these on the baking sheet leaving a gap of atleast an inch between two nankhatais. (They spread a bit while baking.)
- Make cuts or some indentation on them for beauty as well as for uniform baking.
- Sprinkle finely chopped almonds for garnish.
- Refrigerate these for atleast half an hour or more.
- Preheat the oven at 150-160 degree Celsius for about ten minutes.
- Bake these cookies for around 20-22 minutes, till these look a bit firm.
- Remove the tray from the oven and rest the cookies in the tray for 4-5 minutes.
- Transfer these very slowly onto a wire rack and cool them completely.
- Store in airtight containers.
Yum madam. How do you prepare the chocolate extract?
I got a gift from.canada