Saffron-Almond Cookies for Tried & Tasted

Zlamushka has Chosen Nupur's One Hot Stove for this month's Tried and Tested event and it proved to be a very difficult one for me for the main reason that there are so many great and deliciuous looking recipes that I was totally stumped. I wanted to make everything that I saw and then I came across this recipe for Nankhatai. Even though we get a lot of Indian snacks and eatables here in London, there are some that we miss too much because what is available here is not at all in the league of what we get back home. Nankhatai is one such thing. So I was very happy to see the recipe on Nupur's blog. Also I had bought a new Hand Mixer which I was itching to use and this presented me with a good opportunity to do that.

I made a few changes to the recipe.Since I did not have Pistachios with me, I used Almonds and I also ended up using a little more saffron than specified. The end result was not exactly 'Nankhatai' and were more like cookies, but they tasted great nevertheless. I decided to call them Saffron-Almond Cookies and also made the resolution to get all the ingredients together next time and make Nankhatai!

The original recipe for Kesar-Pista Nankhatai can be viewed here. I am reproducing the recipe here with the changes I made.

Makes about 18 pieces

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes (I had slightly salted Butter, so I used that)

1/4 cup ghee (clarified butter)

1/4 cup powdered pistachios (I used Almonds instead)

1/4 tsp. nutmeg (Skipped this)

1/2 tsp. cardamom

1/4 tsp saffron (Increased the qty to 1/2 tsp)

pinch of salt (I skipped this as I was using salted butter)

Method:

"Cut" the butter into the flour using two blunt knives or a pastry blender till the mixture is sandy. Mix other ingredients into the dough. Knead very gently to form a dough, using as little water as necessary.

Place the dough in the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes if it is too sticky. This tip came in very handy. Keeping the dough in the refrigerator for sometime makes it very easy to shape the cookies.

Form 18 balls with the dough. Flatten each ball to form a fat disc. Place on ungreased parchment paper on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees F for about 10-15 minutes till the bottom of the cookie is just browning. Turn off the oven and let the cookies stay inside the warm oven till the top is slightly golden. Cool completely on a rack.

I have a number of recipes bookmarked on Nupur's blog and will be trying them one by one very soon. But for now I am sending these Saffron-Almond cookies to Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen as my entry for this month's Tried and Tasted event.