Nan khatai-- eggless cookie

Hello all! Ever since I got oven I kept thinking I should try more baked items. I am still not perfect but I am trying to make full use of my oven to try out things which at some time seemed a distant dream. My today's recipe is just that only. Another one of my experiments but I tried my best. It did not come out perfect but still it was very good for a novice like me. Nankhatai is basically a cookie. It comes in many flavours but I chose the simplest one as I had the basic ingredients needed. I always bought them from bakery but this I have promised to myself I have to try and perfect it. The first attempt at this was good enough for me and family. 

Recipe source:  HOME COOKS RECIPE

I had halved the quantity here as it was my first time and made minor change to the flavour.


Ingredients:

•  1 cup maida/APF
• 1/2 cup castor sugar
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup ghee
• to garnish nuts (optional)

Method:
Pre heat the oven to 150c. ( oven settings would vary).
Dust and line the baking tray. I used my cake pan here.
Sieve maida with baking powder. Add sugar and mix well.
Add ghee little by little to the flour. The cookies consume a lot of ghee so add slowly and little by little.
First the mixture would resemble bread crumbs. Slowly add ghee till it resembles a poori type dough. Do not add more ghee when the dough is ready.
Make small balls of the dough and press it slighly and top it with nuts of your choice. I added almonds in my first batch but for rest I kept it simple.  Alternate use a cookie cutter to make shapes of your choice. Since I do not have cutter I just pressed with hands. 
Put the cookies on baking tray.  Bake the nankhatai for 10- 12 mins or till  the cookies turn slight brown. Remove from oven and let it cool.  Do not try to remove or else cookie would crumble. I did just that to see if its done. 
Once nan khatais  have cooled enough remove from tray and transfer to airtight container.
A great tea time snack I would say. Well I am going to try again soon to perfect it and the pics here show the ones which did come out very very good.  Hope you like this.

 

Posted in: baked. eggless,cookies,nankhatai