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.
Hi Ashwita..
Had some ragi flour nd was wondeeing what to do with it when i came across your recipe..am a big fan of ragi but not my family..tried thus immediately yesterday and lo….almost the entire dabba got over..its real fantastic..loved them…thanks so much for this yummmmy recipe .keep posting yum items.