The Recipe for the Nalen Gurr Cookies

The recipe

Here is how to make the cookies:

Makes about 50-60 cookies

You will need

350 g plain flour                                              200g Nalen gurr

Pinch of salt                                                       90g castor sugar

2 tsp baking powder                                        1 egg

2tsp ground ginger/dry ginger powder        Flour for dusting

100g butter                                                        Butter for trays, Baking parchment

60ml water                                                         Raisins, sultanas, candied peel

You can skip the salt if you are using salted butter.

Begin by melting the gurr which is a form of deep brown sugar, a concentrated product of date sap, without the separation of the molasses, on a very low flame with the water. When the gurr solid has completely melted let it simmer for about 3 minutes. After that take it off the heat and pour it on a plate and let it cool.

Sift the flour, salt, baking powder and ginger powder together into a bowl and rub in the butter softly, using your fingertips, until the mixture resembles like crumbs. And then stir in the castor sugar, and then make a well in the center.

With a whisk first blend the egg, after that combine the liquid gurr with the egg until blended smoothly. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and mix to a smooth dough. If you are beginning to doubt how you will roll this later on because the dough looks quite soft to roll and handle, well 2 hours in the refrigerator will settle that problem. Now cover and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade/gas 4. Lightly butter the baking parchment and spread them on the baking tray. Divide the dough in half and start to roll out one portion at a time to a 5 mm thickness. For ease I rolled it by putting a cling film between the roller and the dough. While you are rolling out one portion place the other half of the dough back in refrigerator because as it will get soft, it will be tricky to cut the cookies out of it. Using cookie cutters, cut out shapes of your choice, place on the parchment, leaving space between to allow room for spreading. While you are working if you feel the dough has gone quite soft and it becomes challenging to take the cut shapes out nicely place the dough back in the refrigerator for about 10 mins, so working quickly is a good idea. You can decorate them with raisins or sultanas or candied peel just the way you like it. Bake now in the center of the oven for 8-10 minutes or until farm and lightly brown, but still with some give if pressed lightly with a finger. If you can’t fit both trays on the same shelf, bake in 2 or 3 batches.

Leave the cookies now on the baking tray for a few minutes to firm up before you transfer them to a wire rack to cool off and then you can attack them.

The Nalen Gurr winter cookies

Its 2 days since winter solstice, henceforth the days have started to grow longer slowly and I see it in the sky.  Where I am in, I spotted the change looking at the evening sky from  my work room, almost from a week ago I noticed the lightness of darkness in the colors of the sky where almost a week ago it was quite different and my mind danced a little dance! I don’t know why..Somehow my mind really likes this fact that the days have started to grow longer. Just 2 days from now we have Christmas...And I think of Christmas and I think of raisins soaked in rum, cakes, laughter, candles, cookies, old friends, new friends, the new Nalen Gurr, which is a form of liquid sugar made from the sap collected from the date trees, which we know of Khejur/Khajur. It has such a wonderful flavor; I feel it’s really elegant, deep amber gold- a winter specialty.  I wonder why we don’t have tradition where a young man or woman going on a date or going to meet someone special wouldn't carry a little sweet made of Nalen Gurr or a little bottle filled up with this delicious sugary thing or perhaps little cakes made from it! Wouldn't it be really nice to have a tradition like that! I know most of you will agree with me.

                                                                                         The winter evenings are lovely, there is sense of comfort in them, here where I live in this season I have seen mostly smoky evenings so far, the sky was smoky  and the pale burning orange sun makes you look at it again n again. It is not so cold here, the temp is running around 18 degrees so you can imagine it’s quite comfortable. The biggest attraction of this season of winter is reflected when I go shopping for food- whole new kinds of vegetable have emerged all of a sudden,  some of them were hiding  beneath the earth a month ago- the reddish orange carrots, the beetroot, the white n red radishes, the cauliflower, the bunch of  turnips, the mustard greens, the methi greens, the fresh spinach,  the new potatoes of winter, the slender green spring onions-it’s like the earth was preparing a surprise for months and she was doing it secretly beneath the soil, then she presents us with all those bountiful vegetables. Well it is certainly a sweet way of thinking about it like a story for children.

                                  While 2 evenings back I was eating a tiny little block of  Nalen Gurr I  decided I must make cookies with them, and not just any cookies I wanted to make gingerbread cookies with them, but I had my doubts whether the combination of ginger n Nalen Gurr will work or not. Another thing was in a traditional gingerbread cookie there is use of dark treacle, I did not wanna use that, my star was Nalen Gurr and I have to do justice to it. So there I was after an hour melting the Gurr over blue flame, measuring the flour, doubting dry ginger powder, mixing the egg with the Gurr and then after a couple of hours our whole house was literally filled with smell of Nalen Gurr n butter, imagine an evening like that! When air gets that heavy carrying such smell I’m ready to sink in. The cookies were finally there-they looked wonderful and I think you will be happy and smiling looking at them.

  Yesh I made little elephants, cute tiny hippos, some ginger man and some sweetheart cookies. When I finally bite into one I was literally surprised, they were such tiny cookies but so satisfying and full of flavor! J 

Oh my mind instantly jumped because it is a moment of success for me, indeed it is, the combinations of flavor worked, the bake was fine and the cookies looked so much cute n fun, I just imagined that moment making these cookies with children, it is going to be a time span filled with creativity n fun.

 If you are a parent with small kids I insist you to make these cookies with your children and the rest u will see! After all we must not forget inside of each of us no matter how big we are now, there lies a small kid.So munch on my dear reader…munch like a child.