Chocolate filled Orange Whole Wheat cookies

I discovered my favourite thing to bake ever a few days ago- a deliciously nutty, crunchy, cardom scented, buttery, Indian style whole wheat cookie called Nankhatai. They are so easy to make- just mixed in a bowl and so incredibly tasty that its hard to resist baking  and eating them every day.

Once you bake them, these cookies soon become your best friends. They become instant bff's with your cup of masala chai. They will curl up with you and a good book late into the night.
Of course then you'll find out that they also stick tight to your hips :( 


That's when you'll suddenly realize that these cookies like to be shared. They want to be packed off  into snack boxes or mailed to your friends across the country. They might even make you want to bake up a batch for your whole neighbourhood, the postman, your child's teacher, you fellow cubicle dwellers.. you might even find your self saying "Hello there! I really like your shoes. Want a cookie?" and chasing down random strangers proffering a box of cookies.


Today these cookies told me they really, really want to spend quality time with coffee powder, rosewater, pistachios, chocolate, orange extract, almond extract...
How could I deny these cuties their heart's desire? So here they are mingling with chocolate chips, and orange extract!

I would still insist you try the original version first- I definitely like those better. You can reserve half or a quarter of the dough and try out this and other variations. So with just one dough, you can have several types of cookies! What fun!


Chocolate filled Orange Whole Wheat cookies
Recipe adapted from: Manjula's kitchen via Ria and my post here 


Method:

• Make the whole wheat cardamom Nanhatai dough from my earlier post here. Don't add the almonds
• Once you have made the dough- you can divide it in half to try both the original or the variations.
• Add a few drops of ( I used 1/ 4 tsp) orange extract to half of the dough in a separate bowl. A tsp of orange zest would be awesome too.
• Add a few drops of red and yellow food coloring or a drop each of food color gel (Optional)
• Crumble and mix the dough well to incorporate the extract and coloring so that it is uniformly orange
• Take a half tbsp measuring spoonful of the orange dough and flatten it in between your palms to make a flat mini chappati or pancake shape
• Place 2-3 chocolate chips or small pieces of chopped chocolate ( better if you want the chocolate filling to be melty and gooey to use chopped chocolate since choco chips dont melt as much) in the center and warp the dough to cover the chocolate chips/chunks completely.
• Pinch the dough together and roll to make a smooth round ball. If there are any cracks, pinch them closed with your fingers so the chocolate doesn't leak out.
• Bake as indicated in the recipe (360 F for 10 mins), lowering baking time by 5 mins from the original 15 mins to avoid over browning these.

When I first tasted the results of my experiment-they vaguely reminded me of the Britannia orange biscuits I took with me to school almost everyday as a kid. I normally like my cookies a little over baked and a deeper shade of golden with slightly brown edges-and while that was great for the original version, or even for regular chocolate chip cookies, I think that for orange flavoured ones, I should have baked them for a lesser time to bring out the gentle flavor much better, checking after 10 mins instead of 15 as called for in the original. 
To make the chocolate filling melty and gooey, put the cookies in the microwave for about 10 seconds.


Because these were over baked I think I preferred the taste of  the original version better than these. I will still definitely try this again baking them a little less and will also be trying other flavor combos, but see myself baking the original recipe most often.

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