30/08/2026
How many of you have heard about Roat biscuits??? These wonderful cookies are originally from Hyderabad in India and very popular during Nizam time. The dense, eggless cookie combines wheat flour or all-purpose flour, semolina (sooji), clarified butter (ghee), sugar or honey, cardamom, nutmeg, and generous amounts of dry fruits like almonds, pistachios, and raisins.
Roat cookies (or roat biscuits) are deeply tied to Pune through Roat Bakers, an iconic 169-year-old heritage bakery established in 1857. They not only make these delicious cookies, but they will also bake your homemade dough if you give all the ingredients to them. When we were children, my grandmother would make these by kilos(5-6kgs) and get these baked from Roat bakers in their wood fired oven.
Generations of Punekars associate the bakery with childhood memories, slow-baked aromas, and festive or daily tea-time treats. I am no exception . Though I am not from Pune, we used to come here for two months during our summer holidays and this cookie was the major attraction. 😋😋😋😋
After so many years, when I actually had forgotten about it, I happened to visit my cousins house and his wife made me eat it. She had tried her hand at it that day. And my mind went back 40-50 years. The taste, the aroma brought back a lot of memories from our childhood. I had to bake them. And I did!!!
So here’s my humble attempt at making these Mawa Roat and they turned out delicious!!!! 😋😋😋😋
