Nutrition rich Crispy Savoury Ajwain Cookies

I love baking cookies. They are easy to make, easy to store and come in handy whenever you need something delicious to snack on! Baking them at home lets you customise it completely, lets you create flavours you love and add a lot of nutrition, so you don’t feel guilty when you have one or a few. In fact they can become a good source of nourishment along with being a delicious treat!

These savoury cookies, made with whole wheat flour, jowar, cashews, ghee and flavoured with ajwain/carom seeds and kasuri methi were born from this need! And they have never disappointed!

Here’s what you will need to make these cookies yourself.

Whole Wheat Flour

This is regular aata from the pantry. It is more nutritious than regular refined flour and has more fiber compared to maida. Whole wheat flour provides structure to these cookies.

Jowar flour

Jowar or Sorghum is a millet that is rich in vitamins and minerals and is also considered a good source of fiber, antioxidant and protein. Some millets have a distinct taste which can take some time to get used to. If you are new to using millet flour, this is a great way to include them in your diet. Jowar gives a boost of nutrients to these cookies.

Cashews

Apart from bringing their delicious flavour, cashews here also help to reduce the amount of fat needed in this recipe. These cookies rely on the natural fat from the cashews too and hence do not need as much added fat as most of the other cookie recipes.

Flaxseeds

Without flaxseeds, these cookies will turn out very crumbly. Jowar flour is naturally gluten free. So these cookies need something to provide structure and to hold everything together. Flaxseeds are a great way to do this and also amp up the nutritional value of the cookies. Flaxseeds are a very good source of protein, fiber, and omega-3 fatty acids.

Flavours

Ajwain or Carom seeds have an amazing sharp flavour. They are very good for boosting digestion.

Kasuri methi/dried fenugreek leaves have this beautiful aroma that perfumes the cookies ever so slightly.

You can try other flavour combinations with the base recipe of these cookies, like made these into jeera/cumin cookies! Toast your cumin slightly before using them in this recipe.

There’s something even more exciting! This recipe can very easily be made completely vegan. You can replace ghee with any neutral flavoured vegetable oil of your choice or with vegan butter. Replace milk with any plant based milk of your choice or simply with water.

I generally made double the batch of what I had made for the Youtube video. All the ingredients mentioned below are double of what you will see in the video recipe. You can scale it down to half if you plan to make a small batch.

Here are the measurements and the steps in detail!

Wholesome Savoury Crispy Ajwain/Carom Cookies

Serves: 20-25 cookies Prep Time: 15 mins Cooking Time: 25 mins 25 mins

Rating: 4.5/5

( 2 voted )

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Ingredients

1/4 cup  (22 g) - Ground Flaxseeds

1/4 cup - Hot Water

1/2 cup (65 g) - Cashews

1/2 cup (55 g) - Jowar flour

1 cup (130 g) - Whole Wheat flour

1/4 cup (50 g) - Ghee (not melted)

1 tsp - Salt

1 tsp - Jaggery

1/2 tsp - Baking Powder

1/2 tsp - Baking Soda

2 tsp - Kasuri Methi

1 tsp - Ajwain

1/4 cup - Milk

Instructions

1. In a small bowl, combine the ground flaxseeds with water, mix well and set it aside.
2. Grind the cashews along with jowar flour to a fine powder.
3. In a large bowl, take ghee, jaggery and salt. Whip it with a spatula or a whisk until the ghee fluffs up slightly and looks paler. It will only take 1 or 2 minutes.
4. Add in the whole wheat flour, ground cashews and jowar flour, ajwain, crushed kasuri methi, soaked flaxeeds and milk.
5. Mix everything gently to form a dough.
6. Roll or shape this dough into a cylindrical log. Wrap this in a plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least an hour or upto overnight.
7. Take it out of the refrigerator and preheat the oven to 170C.
8. With a knife, cut the log into discs, about 2-3 mm in thickness.
9. Place them on a parchment lined baking tray and bake them for around 20-25 mins depending on your oven. The cookies should be nicely golden at this point.
10. Take them out on a wire rack and let them cool to room temperature.
11. Store them in an air tight container for upto a week.

Notes

1. You can make these cookies with just wholewheat flour. Increase the quantity by 1/2 cups and reduce the quantity of flaxseeds to 2 tbsps.
2. If you increase the quantity of Jowar flour, the cookies will turn out very crumbly.
3. Removing flaxseeds from the recipe will make the cookies very crumbly.
4. After making the cookie dough, it is always good to refrigerate the dough. It gives all the ingredients a chance to hydrate and lets the ghee solidify. This makes the dough easy to handle and cut and also improves the final texture of the cookies.
5. If your cookies still don't look golden after 25 minutes of baking, bake them for another 5-10 minutes. The cookies will crisp up once cold.
6. To make these cookies vegan, you can replace the ghee in this recipe with a neutral flavoured vegetable oil or vegan butter of your choice, in the same quantity.
7. You can replace the milk with any plant based milk or simply with water, in the same quantity.
8. If you don't want to use Flaxseeds, you can use 1 large egg instead.

Did You Make This Recipe?

Have you made this recipe? Tag me on Instagram at @VanillaTrails and use the hashtag #MadeWithVanillaTrails.