My first ever experiment with healthy baking started with these exact Ragi Cookies. Probably, a year back, when I had decided to get an OTG for our own home. I was super excited about trying out healthier eating. I haven't used maida(all-purpose flour) for over two years now. Since even lightly thinking of healthier eating, the first thing I cut out was Maida. But I knew I had a very long way to go before reaching the pinnacle of healthy eating. Honestly speaking, I don't enjoy cooking all that much. But baking, now that's a whole other passion for me.
At home, I've limited the number of processed snacks that we get home. My husband and I have never been huge fans of constant munching of snacks. It wasn't hard for us to reduce the purchases. Nonetheless, I still liked to munch on the occasional cookies and brownies. We started purchasing organic millet cookies. I stopped purchasing those as they came in solid plastic packaging which I'm against. I started my mission to try and replicate those cookies that I loved eating. I've baked these ragi cookies over 4-5 times and have almost perfected them, to be able to share the recipe with the rest of you healthy eaters.
Specifications:
These RAGI COOKIES have: ❌ MAIDA ❌ SUGAR ❌ BUTTER ❌ EGGS And hence they are super healthy and can be prepared by vegetarians as well.
Ingredients
1/2 cup Ragi Flour
1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour (Atta)
5 Tbsp Vegan Ghee
5 Tbsp Fine Jaggery Powder
1 Tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Salt
2-3 Tbsp Plant based Milk
This is an approximate measure. The amount of jaggery may need to be increased according to your sweet tooth. The measure of ghee can also be reduced if you are not a big fan of it. But this measurement would be correct for someone who likes healthy (low-medium sweet) cookies.
Directions
Combine all the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. You can keep the order of adding it as Wheat ➡️ Ragi ➡️ Jaggery Powder➡️ Baking Powder ➡️ Salt.
2. Make sure to mix all the dry ingredients well before continuing.
3. Now add the Ghee to this mixture and mix well with a spatula or your hands. The mixture will turn into a brown colour because of the jaggery in it. Mix it well till it starts forming a ball on your hands.
4. Now start by adding the milk to the dough formed. Start with 1 Tbsp of milk and mix it well till it all starts binding together. Then take another Tbsp or two of milk till the dough forms a non-sticky mass.
It need not come together as a single ball of dough, firstly. But keep using the milk in order to get it into a single ball of dough. No need to knead the dough at all. And no need to keep it to rest before using it.
5. Take small portions of the dough in your hand and roll them gently into smooth balls. Make sure that they don't crumble or break up into bits. If the milk added is in correct proportion to your mixture, the dough should form good, solid balls.
6. You can make as many cookies as you want, from this dough depending on the size and thickness of your cookies. I decided to make it thick enough so that the whole batch could be baked at once.
7. Preheat the oven at 200 °C for around 10 minutes.
8. Gently place the baking tray into the oven and keep it at 200 °C for another 20 to 30 minutes until it turns a slight deep brown shade. *The time may vary according to the power of each Oven. So make sure to check every 10 minutes to make sure that it doesn't burn.*
9. After 20 minutes, carefully take baking tray outside.
10. Keep the cookies to cool down so that they can get to their solid form.
It may take you a couple of trials as it did for me, to get to understand the sweetness and crispiness that maybe your favourite kind. But don't lose heart until you create your PERFECT BATCH OF COOKIES!
The Healthy Cooking Series is a part of my Low Waste Lifestyle where I'm trying to reduce the amount of waste that I create as an individual, on a daily basis. Likewise, if you're interested in trying out this Low Waste Lifestyle, check out my Blog Posts over HERE.
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