Baked Ghanaian chips AKA pastry chips, flaky with subtle sweetness and flavour from nutmeg.
The most served snack at homes, parties, get-together, etc here during the Christmas holidays is chips, my grandmother be somewhere might say chi-bis.These chips are either fried or baked, flavoured with onions, garlic, nutmeg, sometimes pepper and sugar. My auntie was very popular during the Christmas holidays because of her chips. She will use almost a half bag of flour for chips and distribute it in her neighbourhood, mostly to random people passing by her house. Huh! such a generous woman.
As with most Ghanaian folks, she never had a recipe, she went with the feel of the margarine together with the flour, knead it together, roll it out, cut and into the hot oil it goes. Mmmm…. nothing can beat freshly fried chips with a chilled bottle of Sprite. That was Christmas back in the day when life was just simple.
Today, I present to you the very popular treat during Christmas in Ghana; baked Ghanaian chips. It is nothing fancy, trust me. All you need is flour, margarine or butter, baking powder, nutmeg, sugar and milk. This dough is very easy to work with, not too tough or soft. Mix everything together, roll it and cut into shapes mostly stripes or cubes and bake. You can even use a pasta making machine for that.
Well I do not have those fancy pasta making machine nor the chips shaping machines so I normally cut into stripes and roll it around like a coil to get the look in the picture.
It is Christmas, bake cakes or biscuits and cookies, wrap them up, give to that random person you always see in your neighbourhood, call friends, visit older relatives or friends with food, put up a huge smile on your face and just enjoy the goodness of our Lord. Merry Christmas from my family and I to yours. We love you.
Now here is the recipe for baked Ghanaian chips
- 2 ½ cup/300g all purpose or pastry flour
- 2-3 tablespoons sugar use 3 tablespoons for sweeter chips
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- ½ cup + 1 tablespoon/ 127g butter or margarine should be firm
- 3 tablespoons chilled milk of choice
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Preheat an oven to 160˚C/ 320˚F and line a baking tray or sheet with parchment or baking paper.
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In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg and salt. Add the butter or margarine and mix to form coarse dough using your hand or a food processor.
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Add the milk, mix to form a smooth dough. Divide the dough into two. On a floured surface, roll out the dough to about 0.25 cm thickness. Using a knife or a pizza cutter, cut stripes of dough to about 0.5 cm, it not necessary be the same. Continue with the other dough till all the dough is cut into stripes.
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For the look in the picture, take each stripe of dough, coil it around and place on the baking tray.
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Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 22 minutes till firm and no longer looking raw. Store in an airtight container for up to two weeks.