Nankhatai is the Indianised Eggless Shortbread cookies. They are popularly known as Bakery Butter biscuits in South. These melt in mouth cookies are usually made with Shortening/Dalda which makes it quite unhealthy. But it is also true that it tastes so good that you crave them even in odd hours. This version of mine tastes very close to the bakery butter biscuits we get in India I think it is mainly because of the cardamon and rose. Do give it a shot and let me know if it helped you to recreate child memories just like it did to me.
Ingredients:
1 cup All purpose flour/maida
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar or 1/2 cup fine granulated sugar (See notes)
pinch of baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp dried rose petals
4 cardamon pods crushed (see notes)
1/2 – 1 1/2 tsp Rose water or 1/8 tsp Rose Extract/Essence
Method:
Preheat oven to 350F or 176C
In a bowl add butter, baking soda, powdered sugar and beat until it is light and creamy around 3 minutes on low speed (3 on my hand mixer) or sugar is completely incorporated
Add flour, salt, crushed cardamon, crushed dried rose, rose water and gently knead to form a dough
Roll into a log and freeze for 15 minutes
Remove and cut it into equal size and arrange them on baking tray 2 inch apart
Bake for 15 minutes. Allow it to cool on a cooling rack. Store in an airtight container
Notes
When you take it out of the oven it might still look soft but it gets crisper as it cools down.
I have tried both granulated and powdered sugar. The texture is slightly different but both tastes equally good
It is very important that butter is at room temperature
You can either use cardamon powder or crush them coarsely if you like biting into it
Add nuts to garnish.
Since I ran out of rose extract I have used rose water in this recipe. Please feel free to substitute with rose extract or rose essence
You can bake them without freezing as well.
If you don’t have dried rose petals use 2 tsp of rose water
Tastes even more better after a day or two
Adapted from From my Mom’s recipe book
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