Flavoured Nankhatai Recipe

Nankhatai is a popular Indian Shortbread Cookies and a staple in Indian Bakeries. Find 9+ ways of flavouring the Indian Biscuits using just 1 Nankhatai dough in this Flavoured Nankhatai recipe post.

What is Nankhatai?

Originated in Surat, India; Nankhatai is a crispy biscuit (or known as a cookie worldwide) that has a tender crumb and shortbread like texture.

I have already talked about the basic Nankhatai recipe in a much detailed format in a separate post. Consider checking that post to understand:

1. The basic and classic Indian Bakery Nankhatai Biscuit.
2. What makes the Nankhatai, "Khasta"
3. How to achieve the beautiful cracks on top and much more.

Today let me share with you all how you can take that 1 dough and make 9+ flavours with the same to make a classic Indian Cookie Box with these Flavoured Nankhatai this Diwali.

Please note the method shared in this post can be applied to any cookie base be it Sugar Cookies, Shortbread Cookies or even Butter biscuits.

INGREDIENTS NEEDED:

Ingredient Notes:.

1. Please note the above image refers to the ingredients needed to make the basic nankhatai dough. However the recipe card does include the ingredient lists for making flavours of choice.
2. Ghee: Do not substitute ghee; the fat source with anything else. This is the key ingredient
3. Sugar: Always powder your sugar and then use in this recipe.

Step by Step Instructions:

Step 1: Making the Basic Dough

• Start by adding all the dry ingredients - Flour, Chickpea Flour, Semolina and Salt to a bowl. Add the ghee and combine it into a soft dough. (image 1-3)
• At first the dough would be crumbly. Do not be tempted to add any additional liquid here, the warmth of your hands would melt the ghee and everything will come together into a dough.
• Divide the dough into 9 equal portions. You can either eyeball or divide it into 9 portions weighing 112 gms each. (image 4)

Step 2 - Flavouring the Dough

1. Rose Nankhatai (image 5): Add the gulkand, rose essence and pink food colour and combine to form a smooth dough.
2. Paan Nankhatai (image 6): Add paan masala, paan essence and green food colouring. Form an even dough.
3. Coffee Nankhatai (image 7): Add coffee concoction, cocoa powder and form a dough.
4. Kesar Nankhatai (image 8): Saffron milk, saffron essence, orange food colour (optional). Form a dough.
5. Chocolate Nankhatai (image 9): Add nutella, cocoa powder and crushed hazelnuts. Form an even dough.
6. Butterscotch Nankhatai (image 10): Butterscotch sauce, Butterscotch Essence and form to a dough.

These 6 types of flavouring were the easiest and do not require any pre-preparations whereas the next 3 types need little bit of preparatory steps. But I promise it is nothing very complicated and in fact some of them you might be doing it regularly at home.

1. Thandai Nankhatai (image 11): Add thandai masala (homemade or store bought), haldi wala doodh (turmeric milk). Form into a dough.
2. Rasmalai Nankhatai (image 12): Add Rasmalai powder, Rasmalai Milk, Rasmalai Essence and yellow food colour and combine to a dough.
3. Pista Nankhatai (image 13): Add Pistachio paste, Pistachio Essence and form to a dough.

How to make Thandai Masala?

• I have a blog post on Thandai Masala Powder. I just halved it and used it for this recipe.
• Remember halving it also would give you almost 1/2 go 3/4 cup of the masala powder. You can store the remaining in an air tight container for 2 months.
• Mix it with warm milk and have it before bed time. A very good source of nutrition for kids.
• Or you can use it so many desserts like mousse or cheesecakes.

How to make Rasmalai Powder?

• I am using the Rasmalai powder that we made in our Rasmalai Cookies recipe.
• Again just halve the recipe or even quarter the recipe and you can use the rest for some other purpose.

Pistachio Paste:

• Soak the pistachios in hot water for 2 hours.
• Remove the skin off and dry it using a paper towel.
• Transfer to a mixer or food processor and then blend. Add a tbsp or two tbsp oil and blend till you get a fine paste.
• This paste is so flavourful you can always re purpose it in so many other recipes like mousse, cheesecakes or ganache too.

Step 3 - Shaping the Cookies

• Once you have the flavours of choice it is time to shape them.
• Take a small portion or if you like to be precise 28 gms of dough. Roll it between your palms to form a smooth crack free ball (image 15).
• Using your fore-finger gently press the top of the ball to form an indentation (image 16) and place it on a baking tray lined with parchment paper (images 18-20).
• This indentation would make way for those beautiful cracks to start and your cracks won't be all over the place.
• Chill the cookies for a minimum of 20 mins

Step 4 - Baking

• While the dough is chilling, preheat your oven to 190°C
• Once pre-heated invert an empty baking tray and place it in the middle rack of your oven and then place the baking tray with the shaped cookie dough above it.
• This method is known as Double Pan Baking.
• Bake the cookies for 11-14 mins.
• It took me 13 mins to bake all the cookies except the pista and cofee nankhatais which took 14 mins to bake.
• Cookies will definitely be soft to touch, so do not be tempted to bake it longer.
• The butterscotch flavoured cookies spread a bit ( I guess because of the butter from the sauce) however you can fix it by taking a round shape cookie cutter and cutting it evenly.

Step 5 - Garnishing

This is an optional step but since we made so many flavours I decided to go for different garnishing on top to elevate the look of these Flavoured Nankhatai cookies.

You can choose to stick to only plain nuts it would still taste good just remember to garnish the cookies while they are still hot that is straight out of the oven.

1. Rose Nankhatai: Dried Rose Petals
2. Paan Nankhatai: Glazed Cherries
3. Coffee Nankhatai: Roasted Pecans
4. Kesar Nankhatai: Saffron strands
5. Chocolate Nankhatai: Crushed Ferrero Rocher
6. Butterscotch Nankhatai: Almond Praline
7. Thandai Nankhatai: Crushed Black Pepper
8. Rasmalai Nankhatai: Golden White chocolate chips
9. Pista Nankhatai: Slivered Pistachios.

Allow the cookies to cool on your baking tray itself for 5 mins then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Storage Instructions:

Store it in an air-tight container only when it is completely cooled.

This would last for 15 to 20 days, even more but honestly this won't last that long as it is that good!!

More Variations:

1. Coconut Nankhatai: You can add fresh or desiccated coconut to the dough along with coconut extract to enhace the flavour.
2. Christmas Nankhatai: Peppermint or Mint flavour would be so good. Add in some finely chopped mint leaves or dried mint leaves to the dough.
3. Chocolate Nankhatai: Instead of nutella you can also add melted dark or white chocolate to the dough.
4. Dry Fruits Nankhatai: I have shared the Pista Nankhatai recipe with you all today. In place of pistachios use almonds or cashews or any other nut of choice to make Almond Nankhatai or Kaju Nankhatai respectively.
5. Kesar Pista Nankhatai: Or you can also try a combination of flavours like the pistachio paste, saffron essence and saffron milk to form kesar pista nankhatais.

Baker's Tips:

1. Consider checking our basic Nankhatai recipe post for detailed tips and tricks for getting the base recipe right.
2. Make sure to keep the dough covered at all time as you are working with so many flavours it might take a little time from forming a dough to shaping them, so in between always keep the dough covered with a tea towel so that nothing dries out.
3. You may find the dough to be a bit sticky while adding certain flavours and if you are finding it too difficult to combine to a dough then simply grease your hands with some ghee and it should make the process easy.
4. If you wish to seek guidance on Pricing these Flavoured Nankhatai then consider checking my detailed post on Cake Pricing Guide for the same.

Recipe FAQ's

Related Recipes:

1. Basic Nankhatai recipe
2. Diwali Cookies

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