Skip to content

Nankhatai (Scaled Up, Butter Version)

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 32 cookies

Ingredients

  • 220 g all-purpose flour (maida)
  • 100 g besan (gram flour)
  • 40 g semolina (suji)
  • 175 g powdered sugar
  • 200 g unsalted butter, melted
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cardamom powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

  1. Combine dry ingredients: In a large bowl, sieve together the flour, besan, semolina, baking powder, and powdered sugar. Stir in the salt.
  2. Add butter and knead: Pour in the melted butter and knead for 3-4 minutes until it forms a soft dough.
  3. Add cardamom: Mix in the cardamom powder until evenly distributed through the dough.
  4. Shape the cookies: Roll small portions of dough into balls, place on a parchment-lined tray, and press a small indent in the center of each with your finger. Top with chopped pistachios if you like.
  5. Chill (recommended): Since butter has more water than ghee, chill the shaped cookies for 15-20 minutes before baking to help them hold their shape and spread less.
  6. Bake: Preheat oven to 170C (340F) for 10 minutes, then bake the tray on the middle rack until light golden brown on the bottom (about 18-22 minutes).
  7. Cool and store: Let the cookies cool completely on the tray before storing in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Notes

Scaling: The total flour-mix (maida + besan + semolina = 360g) matches the flour weight in the Ajwain Cookies recipe, roughly 1.7x the original Nankhatai batch. Sugar: Cut about 17% from the proportionally-scaled amount (from ~213g down to 175g). Butter substitution: Butter swaps in for ghee at roughly 1:1 by weight. Since butter carries some water while ghee is pure fat, expect a slightly softer dough and a touch more spread, which the chilling step helps offset. Baking powder: The original Aarti Madan recipe uses baking powder at a notably higher ratio than most other Nankhatai recipes online (which often use less baking soda, or half as much baking powder, per 100g of flour). One commenter on the original recipe reported bitterness at the full original amount. This version uses 3 tsp for 360g flour, pulled back from a straight proportional scale-up of 5 tsp, landing closer to the middle of what other recipes use while keeping good lift. Baking time: Stays close to the original since it depends more on cookie size than total batch size -- watch for light golden color on the bottom rather than going by the clock alone.