I used to be the sort of person that avoided maida (refined flour) at all costs. Well, almost – for the restriction only applied to when I was cooking at home. If I had an option for whole wheat outside, I would take it but I wasn’t too finicky.
They say one mellows down with age. It happened with me, anyway. Now I don’t care so much. I figured that since I was eating refined stuff outside anyway, at least I could stop being so harsh with myself. at home. That attitude made my breads a lot softer. I’ve used maida and ragi huri hittu – baby food made with ragi – in a 50:50 ratio. You could use just ragi huri hittu and see how it turns out – please do leave a comment on how that went!
Ingredients
½ cup all purpose flour
½ cup ragi huri hittu, (OR 1 cup ragi huri hittu and no plain flour)
¼ cup besan (gram flour)
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp fine rava (cream of wheat or sooji)
2 to 3 pinches of nutmeg powder or grated nutmeg
½ tsp cardamom powder
½ cup ghee (semi solid) or butter at room temperature, 80 grams
½ cup sugar or ⅔ cup brown sugar
½ tbsp curd or yogurt
1 to 2 tbsp milk
A few almonds
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180° C and line a baking tray with foil.
- Sift the the dry ingredients together – the flours, baking powder and baking soda. keep aside.
- Cream the ghee and sugar with a whisk or electric mixer until smooth, light and creamy.
- Mix in curd.
- Add the sifted dry ingredients. rava, and cardamom and nutmeg powders.
- Gently mix everything. do not knead. just mix and gather to a smooth dough. if the mixture is too crumbly and you cannot bring it together, add 1 to 3 tbsp of milk. mix lightly until the desired consistency is achieved.
- Make goose-berry sized balls from the dough, roll them evenly in your palms. slightly flatten them. and press almonds on the top lightly.
- You can also make some crisscross designs on them with a fork or toothpick.
- Place the cookies in a baking tray, leaving some space between them so that they can expand while baking.
- Bake for 20-25 mins till light golden and cool on wire racks.
- If any remain, store them in an air tight container.
Variation: Banana Ragi Cookies
I had an over ripe banana sitting on the counter while I was baking these and thought hey! Why not mix that in! I simply mashed the banana and added it to the dough. The cookies turned out a little softer and chewier, and I like them like that. If you want them crispy, you may want to cut down on the ghee by a couple of tablespoons.