The Story of Nanakhatai: From a Surat Bakery to Every Indian Tin

Nanakhatai is a crumbly, melt-in-the-mouth Indian shortbread made with flour, ghee, sugar and cardamom, baked until its top cracks into the familiar crazed pattern. It is sold in bakeries from Surat to Mumbai to Delhi, but its story, according to popular accounts, begins in one particular Gujarati port city.

Where did Nanakhatai originate?

The most commonly told version places the birth of Nanakhatai in Surat, Gujarat, sometime in the 16th–17th century. Surat was then one of the busiest trading ports in the world, and Dutch and other European merchants had settled there.

According to the story, when the Dutch traders eventually left, a bakery they had run was taken over by a local Parsi baker — often named as Faramji Pestonji Dotivala. Bread that relied on toddy-based fermentation did not sell well among the local population once the Europeans were gone, so the baker began drying out leftover bread and selling it cheaply. Over time this evolved into a rich, eggless, ghee-based biscuit that suited Indian tastes — the ancestor of today’s Nanakhatai.

The Dotivala name is still associated with a bakery in Surat today. As with many food histories, details vary between tellings and are hard to verify from written records, so it is best read as a well-loved local legend with a strong grain of history.

What does the name "Nanakhatai" mean?

The name is usually explained as a blend of two words:

• "Nan" — from Persian, meaning bread
• "Khatai" — from Afghan/Dari usage, meaning biscuit

So "Nanakhatai" roughly means bread-biscuit — a fitting name for something that, according to legend, started life as dried bread and became a biscuit. The name also hints at the many cultures that met in Surat’s markets: Persian, Afghan, Parsi, European and Gujarati.

How is Nanakhatai made?

Classic Nanakhatai has a short list of ingredients:

• Flour — maida, wheat flour (atta), besan (gram flour), or a mix; some recipes add a little sooji (semolina) for crunch
• Ghee — the key to its melt-in-the-mouth texture
• Powdered sugar (or jaggery in some versions)
• Cardamom, and sometimes nutmeg
• A pinch of baking soda or baking powder
• Pistachio, almond or saffron for topping

The method is simple but needs patience:

1. Ghee and sugar are whisked until light and fluffy.
2. The flours and cardamom are folded in to form a soft dough — no water, no eggs.
3. Small balls are shaped and topped with a nut or a strand of saffron.
4. They are baked at a moderate temperature until the tops crack and the bases turn lightly golden.

The cracked surface is a sign of a good Nanakhatai: it means the dough was rich enough in ghee and baked gently enough to rise and split.

Nanakhatai today

Nanakhatai is now a fixture of Indian tea time and festive gifting, especially around Diwali. Many families bake it at home, and every bakery has its own ratio of besan to flour and its own idea of how crumbly it should be.

Quick answers about Nanakhatai

Is Nanakhatai eggless? Traditional Nanakhatai is eggless — its richness comes from ghee.

What is the difference between Nanakhatai and shortbread? Both are rich, crumbly biscuits, but Nanakhatai uses ghee instead of butter and is flavoured with cardamom, often with besan in the flour mix.

Nanakhatai at DeshÉ

At DeshÉ in Jamnagar we bake Nanakhatai in small batches with pure ghee, in four flavours: Elaichi, Kesar Pista, Atta & Jaggery and Chocolate Chip. If you would like a fresh tin, send us an enquiry and we will let you know what is coming out of the oven next.