naan khatai / desi cardamom-pista-saffron cookies

I figured I should be a good daughter and make something that suits my parents taste buds once in a while. I've never really been into desi sweets, and baking them or creating them from scratch was just out of the question, but recently I've thought of expanding my horizons. I guess it all started with my aunts kulfi recipe last year!

I was surprised to learn that these appealed to my taste buds too! Not like I'd scarf them down as if theyre chocolate chip cookies or anything, but a small cookie or two is nice every now and then.


Here's my version, used a combo of a few recipes

3 cups all purpose flour
1 stick (1/2 cup) softened butter
12 tbsps powdered/confectioners sugar (if you dont have any, throw some regular sugar in a grinder and there you go)
1.5 tbsps of cardamom powder (made out of ground cardamom - WITH the skin)
1 egg yolk, beaten
1 cup full fat plain yogurt
2 tbsps crushed/powdered almonds
2 tbsps crushed pistachios (i mixed both types of nuts in a grinder and just crushed them in one go. the consistency should be powder like for the most part)
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
saffron (optional and as much as you want)

Preheat oven to 300. Cream the butter and sugar together, add cardamom powder and saffron. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and then add the creamed butter sugar mixture and begin to incorporate using your hands. Add a few tbsps of yogurt at a time to get the dough to come together nicely, you may not need the entire cup. The end result should be nice and soft, like bread dough, which you can form into small golf sized balls. Place the balls on a baking sheet and flatten them ever so slightly from the top as you create a dent in the middle with your finger. Brush the egg yolk over the top, and fill dent with powdered nut mixture. Bake for about 15-20 mins or until golden brown.

Note that my golf sized cookie dough balls were a bit too big at first, and i didnt flatten them out properly at all, so since these dont flatten out like chewy choc chip cookies, my first batch was kinda undercooked from the inside. So you might wanna keep that in mind. It wasn't a  big deal though. A day later I just cut them up in halves, and put them back in the oven for 10 minutes and they became nice and crispy again.


So yeah, they were nice. I'm gonna try out more recipes though. I think they should be a bit more crispier, but these were pretty good I'd say. Then again I don't have these cookies often. My dad who loves this kinda stuff was pleased with the result so I guess they must be alright