Lavender Nankhatai (Eggless Shortbread Biscuits)
A delicious sweet buttery Indian-style shortbread biscuit to celebrate any occasion!
Equipment
- 2 Mixing bowls
- 2 Saucepans one small, one big
- 1 Whisk
- 1 Spatula
- 1 Baking tray
- Parchment Paper
Ingredients
- 1.5 cup unbleached all-purpose flour or atta/whole-wheat flour
- 1/2 cup besan chickpea flour
- 1/2 cup almond flour
- 1/2 cup sooji semolina
- 200 grams ghee or unsalted butter If you’re using butter, it should be melted and cooled in liquid form
- 7 tbsps organic cane sugar or any sugar you prefer. This is in tbsps so you can adjust how sweet you want it. For me, 7 did it!
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp cardamom powder if you dont have powder, use 10 pods, open them up and take out the seeds. You can keep the pods for something else, but you only need the seeds for this recipe.
- 2 tbsp lavender buds as per the picture in my blog
Instructions
- First, we need to make the lavender powder so it blends well in our dough. To make this, we need to roast the lavender buds (with the cardamom seeds if you're using that) in a small saucepan over medium heat.
- Once the buds and seeds turn light brown, and you can smell the aroma, transfer it to a pestle and mortar. Grind it into a powder. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, add all the flours, sugar, baking soda, and the lavender and cardamom powder. Whisk it until it is all fully combined.
- If you’re using butter, get another saucepan over low flame, and melt it until it is fully liquid. Let this mixture cool (but it must still be liquid) before you add it to your flour. If you’re using ghee, you can use it directly and skip this step.
- Add the wet ingredients (ghee/butter) to your dry ingredients, and gently combine. You can use a spatula or you can use your hands. Whatever works.
- Pre-heat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.
- Split your dough to make round dough balls. Nankhatai is usually small sized cookies, so you can guestimate using half the size of your palm.
- Over a parchment covered baking tray, place the small sized dough balls and flatten it with your hand to make it into a cookie. You can pick it up and reshape them with your hands if you want.
- I like to imprint the center of the nankhatai using my finger so I can place nuts, or extra lavender pods as toppings when it comes out of the oven. So if you'd like to decorate your nankhatai, do this.
- Once you have shaped all your nankhatais, place it in the oven for 15 minutes. Once the timer goes off, check the nankhatais, and if it is golden brown around the edges, you can take it out of the oven to cool. If it not completely golden brown, then leave it in the oven for another 5 minutes (you don't need to switch the oven back on again, the heat that is already in there will help cook it for the 5 minutes)
- Once the edges are golden brown, take out the tray from the oven, and let it cool for 15-20 minutes before you can decorate them with some extra nuts or lavender, or transfer them to a storage container. These cookies come out soft and tender when you first take it out of the oven, but it hardens after it cools, so just be patient,
- You can enjoy these while warm or store them in the fridge to eat whenever you like. I keep them in an air-tight container on the kitchen counter, but if it is extremely humid, its best to keep it in the fridge.
Notes
I hope you love this recipe! Please leave a comment or RATE this recipe if you enjoyed this.