Nan Khatai

Probably nan khatai are the first cookies I ever baked in my kitchen and so, they are special to me. Over the years I have tried various versions, liking them all even without realizing they had Parsi connection. This time around I tried this semolina-almond version which yield crispy, crumbly delicious nan khatai that are quite addictive. For the uninitiated, nan khatai are shortbread biscuits that have been popular in the Indian sub continent for centuries. They are believed to be originated in Surat, a city in western India during 16th century. The word nan khatai is said to have derived from a Persian word 'naan' meaning bread and an Afghani word 'khatai' meaning biscuit.
 
According to the ebook Eat, Pray and Live, some of the Parsi cooks who worked for the Dutch in Surat had learnt to bake soft bread by fermenting the dough with toddy, which is supposedly the beginning of the legacy of Parsi bakeries in Surat. Parsis were inspired by the eggless Scottish shortbread, to create nan khatai, one of Surat's famous confections.The Surat bakers realized that the recipe was suitable for Gujarati vegetarians who did not eat eggs and adapted to suit the local populace by adding nuts and cardamom. Here is another interesting read about how nan khatai came to existence.

Ingredients: (Yield 18 - 20 cookies)
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup semolina (I replaced half of it with ground almonds.)
2 tbsp. ground almonds (Optional)
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
A pinch of baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tbsp. slivered almonds for garnish

Method:
* Sift together flour, semolina, cardamom and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Add ground almonds to the same bowl if using and mix to combine,
* Cream butter and sugar in another bowl until light and fluffy. Add the flour mixture in small increments and blend until a dough is formed. If for any reason, the dough turns out hard / dry, moisten it with little milk. (I didn't need any milk.)
* Preheat the oven to 350 deg F / 180 deg C. Grease or line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
* Divide the cookie dough into 18 - 20 portions and roll each portion into a smooth ball. Flatten them slightly with the palm of your hand and decorate with almond slivers. Gently press the almond pieces so that they stick to the cookie.
* Arrange them on the prepared baking sheet, spacing them an inch apart since they expand while baking.
* Place them in the preheated oven and bake for about 15 - 20 minutes or until they turn light golden in color. (I baked them for about 20 minutes, turned off the oven and left them in the oven for another 6 minutes or so.)
* Let them cool on a wire rack and store them in an airtight container.


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Keskul / Turkish Almond Pudding

I came across this one while exploring traditional pudding versions prepared around the globe. Sutlac, muhallebi and keskul are dairy based puddings from Turkey. My version today is a quick and easy rice - almond flour based pudding called keskul and is prepared along the lines of a phirni. This version is the easiest one I came across and some versions even had eggs. This is a delicious, creamy dessert with bites of coconut and nuts that provides an interesting crunch to it. I added more ground almonds than recommended and prepared it with a thicker consistency. More milk can be added if one prefers to keep it thinner.

The original recipe had an interesting anecdote, connecting 'keskul' to Ottoman empire. A keskul is a bowl prepared with a coconut shell. Sultan's people would go around disguised as beggars, collecting money in keskul bowls. The money collected would give them an indication of the people's status. And the money then used to get distributed among the poor. 

Ingredients: (Yield - 2 small servings)
1.5 cup milk
2 tbsp. rice flour
1.5 tbsp. almond flour (I used about 3 tbsp. ground almonds)
2 tbsp. coconut flakes
Sugar to taste 

Directions:
* Whisk about 1/2 cup milk with rice flour until there are no lumps or pass the mixture through a fine sieve.
* Add this mixture, remaining milk, almond flour, coconut and sugar in a thick bottomed pot or a non stick one. Cook on low medium flame until the mixture thickens, continuously stirring. I blindly cooked the mixture for about 15 minutes in a non stick pot, stirring the mixture intermittently. Leave a ladle inside the pot to avoid the mixture from boiling over while cooking.
* Chill the pudding and distribute between bowls. Garnish with chopped almonds / pisatchios / raisins before serving.

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Eggless Moroccan Semolina - Almond Cookies

I had come across these Moroccan cookies at New York Times online edition which in turn were adapted from"Dorie's Cookies" by Dorie Greenspan.  These cookies are made with a combination of semolina flour and almond flour and I made them eggless. In case if you don't have almond flour, it can be made at home by grinding the almonds with the skin on if you wish or after drying the blanched and skinned almonds. Semolina flour adds a sandy texture to cookies while the almond flour adds richness. These are a version of crinkle cookies if not for the thumb impression. These cookies though look plain are delicious with a hint of citrus flavor and a lingering aroma of orange blossom water.

I halved the original recipe and gave the measurements below. However I quartered the ingredients from the original recipe for my cookies. (I  guess it is not confusing. That means I further halved the ingredients from the below recipe.)  I baked them on a lined, large cookie sheet for 16 minutes and got around 16 cookies.  

Ingredients: (Yield around 30 cookies)
1 tbsp. flax meal + 3 tbsp. water
3/4 cup + 3 tbsp. semolina flour 
1 cup almond flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
Zest from a lemon
2 tbsp. any flavorless oil (I used canola oil.)
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. orange blossom water (optional)
Confectioner's sugar for dredging

Method:
* Combine the flax-meal and water in a small bowl and keep aside for five minutes. 
* Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
* Whisk together semolina, almond flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. 
* Add sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment or to a bowl in which one use a hand mixer. Grate the lemon zest over sugar and rub them together until sugar is moist. Add flax egg and beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes. Next add oil and continue beating for another 3 minutes. Beat in vanilla and orange blossom water if using. Turn off the mixer. Add half of the dry ingredients and mix them in on low speed. Then add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix only until dry ingredients disappear into the dough, which will be thick.
* Grease your palms and roll out about a tbsp. sized dough between your palms to a ball and coat in confectioners' sugar. Repeat the process with the remaining dough. If your hands get sticky in between rolling the dough balls, wash and grease your palms again and start rolling.
* Place balls 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Push down the center of each cookie with thumb, pressing firmly enough to make an indentation and causing the edges to crack.
* Bake until cookies are lightly colored, about 14 to 16 minutes, rotating pans top to bottom and front to back after 8 minutes. They will be golden at the bottom, puffed and cracked and just firm to the touch. Carefully lift the cookies off sheets and onto racks. 
* Store them in a covered container.

This goes to Blogging Marathon under 'Recipes from Southern Hemisphere' Theme.


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Fun Friday ~ Biscut Suji

I was planning to bake different shaped breads as part of the 'Fun Friday' and scheduled to bake them once I was done with the other posts. As planned, I baked 5 instead of 4 breads including this rose bread. Two turned good in terms of taste and looks and I goofed up with the shape of another excellent tasting bread. I couldn't arrive at the exact shape I was planning to achieve in the case of fourth bread which was supposed to be today's post. I thought of redoing the recipes again but had to let go as I had run out of yeast and was in no mood to go out to buy.
The supposed bread I was about to post today had three colors and I am subbing it with these three colored cookies instead. It was fun making these tie-dye kind cookies and surprising my daughter. She was as curious as I was (when I saw them first time) to know how to arrive at that shape. When I came across several versions of cookies online, I noticed that they all pointed to one particular Malaysian recipe and since the blogger called them biscuit suji, I am also doing so. This recipe doesn't contain any suji / semolina as the title suggests but I have seen another version of suji cookies which are entirely different than this. These cookies are slightly crumbly and taste excellent. They are along the lines of the wedding cookies, moon cookies or the kifli and if you have tasted any of those before and liked it, you are going to love these too. 

Ingredients: (Make 18 - 20 cookies)
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 cup ground almonds
1/2 cup ghee / clarified butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 food colors
Extra Icing sugar to decorate

Method:
* Sift four, baking soda, baking powder and salt together into a mixing bowl. Then add icing sugar, almond powder, ghee and vanilla to the bowl. Combine them to form a dough.

* Divide the dough into three equal portions.

* Add about 6 drops of red food color to one ball of dough and knead well until combined uniformly. Repeat the steps by adding blue and yellow food colors to the remaining dough balls. (I chose to go with red, blue and yellow colors. Use contrasting colors of your choice. The original recipe had green instead of blue.)

* Pinch about olive sized dough pieces of three colors and place them on the palm of your non dominant hand. And fuse them using your fingers of the other hand. (I did not realize until editing that the picture was out of focus but had only one picture to show this step.)
 
* Roll the dough pieces gently between your palms and shape it into a disc. Repeat the steps with the remaining dough and place the shaped discs on a greased or parchment / foil lined baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. The discs are going to expand while baking and so take care to place them apart.

* Bake them in a preheated oven at 325 deg F / 160 deg C for 15 - 20 minutes. (I baked them for about 20 minutes.)
* Cool them and roll in icing sugar to coat them lightly.
 

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 51.

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An InLinkz Link-up

Thursday Teatime ~ Lemon and Mixed Nut Meal Scones

 
It seems that my yesterday's post gave everyone the wrong idea that I am doing 'Flourless Bakes" this week. Actually I thought about that theme, cooked a few dishes based on it but the dishes got scattered under various themes when the final planning happened. I divided my posts under six themes based on the days of the week rather than basing on the varieties of bakes. My post titles  are going to represent my themes and I had reserved 'Wednesdays' to showcase vegetables while 'Thursdays' are meant for tea time snacks. Now that's off my chest, I will move towards these subtly lemon flavored scones made with nuts meal. :)

A scone is according to wiki, a single serving cake / quick bread. They are a basic part of a Devonshire tea / Cream tea where scones are served along with clotted cream and jam during tea time. The pronunciation of scone rhymes with the word 'gone' in England regions while it rhymes with 'cone' in the U.S. I have never been in England to vouch for the authentic texture of scones and have eaten mostly the ones that have come out of my oven. Most of the recipes I have tried so far have been flaky, slightly on the crispier side and subtly sweeter ones. And I had never felt the need of a sweeter jam or cream to go along with it even though they are traditionally eaten that way. Yesterday I was going through some discussion boards regarding scones and read that British scones are more like dense cakes and are lightly sweetened. If that is the case, this recipe is a winner and for the first time, I understood why jam is needed to enjoy these subtly flaky dense cakes. The exterior was very slightly crispy and the scones were redolent with lemony flavor.
 
We all loved these scones to the core and enjoyed them for our yesterday's evening tea and today's breakfast. This recipe gave the inspiration for these scones and I was attracted to the beautiful images captured there. Mine looks different in color than the original one probably because I used pistachio meal more and used flax  meal. However they rose as they should be and tasted good, with only subtle hint of sweetness.

Ingredients: 
2 cups flour
3/4 mixed nut meal (I ground almonds, pistachio and walnuts together finely and substituted for almond meal.)
2 tbsp. sugar
2 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt 
1/2 cup / 1 stick frozen butter, grated (This method proved a lot easier and if not following it, cut the butter into small cubes)
Substitute for 1 egg (I combined 1 tbsp. flax meal + 3 tbsp. water for about 5 minutes.)
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 tsp grated lemon zest
2 - 3 tbsp. almond slices to garnish

Method:
* Preheat oven to 375 deg F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
* Combine all the dry ingredients (From flour to salt in the list) in a mixing bowl. Toss in the grated frozen butter. 
* In another bowl whisk the egg substitute, buttermilk, almond extract and the lemon zest. Add them to the dry ingredients' bowl and gently combine with a fork.
* When the dough roughly comes together, transfer to a lightly floured surface and gently knead just until it comes together into a ball. (My dough was on the sticky side and I lightly greased my hand to work.)

* Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet and gently pat it into a circle of about 9 inches in diameter. Score into 8 wedges, keeping the circle intact. Sprinkle slivers of almond over it.
* Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and springs back when gently touched.
* Cut the wedges when they are still warm and enjoy with jam.

Alternatively the recipe mentions that they can be cut into 8 wedges and baked for 15- 20 minutes at 400 deg F. I haven't tested it.

Check here to learn what other marathoners are cooking during this blogging marathon.

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Mexican Wedding Cookies

On the third day of BM#14, here are delicious Mexican wedding cookies which also go by the names butterballs or Russian tea cakes. According to Wiki, these appeared as tea cakes in Russia in the 18th century. By 20th century they were part of wedding and christmas traditions in  U.S.
The preparation is quite simple and cookies are usually made with almonds, flour and butter. The baked cookies are then rolled in powdered sugar. Although I still prefer these melt in mouth kind almond moon cookies, these wedding cookies are also good in their own way.  

Recipe Source: Here

Ingredients: (Yield 20 cookies)
1 cup + 2 Tbsp all purpose flour
6 Tbsp almond flour
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
for coating:
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Method:
* Preheat the oven to 325 deg F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.
* Beat butter, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl.
* Beat in the almond flour and all purpose flour.
* Scoop tablespoon sized pieces of dough and roll them into balls. Place these balls on the greased baking sheet leaving space between them.
* Bake them for 15 - 20 minutes, until they feel set on top. They firm up after cooling and so don't be tempted to wait for the cookies to firm up while baking. If done so, the cookies would turn hard after cooling.
* In the meanwhile, put the 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar in a shallow bowl. Remove the cookies from the oven and roll them in the sugar to coat and allow them to cool. Store them in an airtight container.
The recipe mentioned to roll them again in the sugar after they are let cool which I didn't do.

Check out the page to see what other marathoners are cooking during this BM#14.

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Almond Shortbread Cookies

I know it seems like over dosage of cookies this week but each one is different and delicious in it's own way. I had planned and baked something else but could not let go without posting these crunchy, buttery, shortbread cookies that have become our recent favorite.

Ingredients: (yield about 22 cookies)

1 cup almond flour (or just grind almonds in a food processor.)

1 & 1/2 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup melted butter (vegan margarine for vegan version)

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

A pinch of salt

Method:

* Preheat the oven to 350 deg F / 175 deg C.

* Add all the ingredients to a food processor and pulse until dough is formed. Or work the dough with hand in a mixing bowl.

* Transfer the mixture to a bowl. Divide the mixture into 20 (more or less) equal portions. Roll each one to a ball and flatten it slightly.

* Arrange them on an ungreased cooking sheet.

* Bake until golden or for about 15 minutes.

Linking this to
1. Srivalli's "Kid's Delight" event, guest hosted by Priya this month with the theme "Eggless / Vegan Bakes".
2. Anjali's "Cakes, Cookies & Desserts" event.

Check here to find out what the other marathoners participating in this BM are cooking.

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Eggless & Spicy Mexican Brownies

I know that I have been missing from action for the past few days. No blogging or blog hopping due to personal commitments. :)) M has been away on work and I thought of investing the extra free time I had doing some productive work rather than sitting in front of the computer. I zealously decided to clean my two floored, 5 bedroom house in a couple of days. Hasty decision, it was. In my over enthusiasm, I turned upside down the whole home and without a helping hand, the chore soon turned into a long, backbreaking one. The result - I feel sore right now from top to bottom and probably need another two days to get the job done.
And lucky me, it is snowing outside while I am drafting this. In fact, it has been snowing nonstop from the morning. The snow will continue through tomorrow morning and our driveway needs to be cleaned. I have guests coming over this weekend. :)  Now you see, with that physical stress, who needs a computer for timepass?

However dear Kalyani's new event "Magic Mingle" kept echoing somewhere at the back of my mind and so here I am with the post. In this event, two ingredients would be picked each month and the participants have to choose a dish that uses both of them. The interesting combo of "Cinnamon & Chillies" is the theme for the first edition. Many spicy rice dishes came into my mind as soon as I read about this combo but wanted to try something different. And hence these Mexican brownies that I first came to know about in my initial days of blogging. This is not your typical sweet brownie but a spicy version.

I came across an egg based brownie recipe but stuck to it since I had all other ingredients ready. I turned the recipe into an eggless version. By mistake, I deleted the recipe source URL and at this hour, I am not able to locate the source recipe. (I will do it later and provide the link.)
The original recipe recommends to use a 8 inch square pan covered with aluminum foil. I halved the recipe and used two mini baking pans. I had to cut those rectangular loafs into brownies and in the process the beautiful upper layer is gone. It appears as though I have ended up with cake like texture but it is not the case. The 1/2 tsp chili powder gives really a kick in your mouth. If you don't want to experience it, reduce the quantity. The brain kept forgetting that these were spicy stuff and the palate accustomed to a sweeter version kept experiencing the jolts. :) If you totally eliminate the chili powder, you will still be left with yummy brownies.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup almond flour

1/2  tsp chili powder (reduce if needed.)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking soda
 A pinch of salt

1/4 cup butter, cut into pieces

2.5 oz semi sweet chocolate

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup yogurt

1/2 cup light brown sugar

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cover the baking pan with aluminum foil, grease it and  dust with flour. Tap out the excess flour.
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Turn off the heat and whisk in the chocolate. Let it sit until the chocolate melts, then add brown sugar, yogurt and vanilla. Mix well.
Combine the flours, chili powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a mixing bowl. Add the wet ingredients. Pour into the baking pan and smooth the top with a spatula. The batter rises and so fill the pan with batter to only a little over half.
Place in the oven and bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out with a moist crumb, about 30 minutes.

This also goes to Vardhini's Bake Fest, hosted by Pradnya this month.

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