festival sweet

Kayi Burfi/ Coconut Burfi:

October 25, 2024

Coconut burfi, a sweet much requested by my daughter, is a delightful and traditional Indian sweet that has been enjoyed for generations. Known for its rich, creamy texture and aromatic flavour, this dessert celebrates simplicity and taste. Made from freshly grated coconut, sugar, and a hint of cardamom, it’s a treat that perfectly balances sweetness with the nutty richness of coconut. Often prepared during festivals, special occasions, or as a thoughtful homemade gift, coconut burfi brings a touch of elegance to any celebration. This recipe will guide you through the steps to create this delectable confection in your kitchen, ensuring each bite is a culinary joy. The essential sweet, which I forgot to add to my blog, will take place today.

Ingredients:

Fresh Coconut gratings – 2 cups (Tightly packed and only white part)

Sugar – 1 cup

Water – ½ to ¾ cup

Cardamom powder – 1 tsp (powdered)

Ghee – 2 tsp (optional)

Milk – 1 tsp

Method:

-Put all the grated coconut in a mixie jar and pulse a little to get a powdery texture.

-Put sugar and water (sugar should immerse) and boil. Add 1 tsp of milk when the sugar dissolves completely and wait to accumulate the impurities at the top centre.

-Remove all the impurities until you see white bubbles.

-When the sugar starts to bubble, you will see that the sugar has reached a one-thread thick consistency.

-Add pulsed coconut and start mixing for a while. Add ghee and powdered cardamom and continue cooking until the mixture becomes bubbly and white and becomes like a mass.

-Pour the mixture into the applied thali. Put some ghee on the back side of the spoon and pat it nicely till it turns smooth.

Leave some time, mark it with the knife and store it in an air-tight container after it turns firm.

Kesari bath:

November 29, 2021

Kesari bath is made in many ways. Traditionally, it is made with Bansi Rava, and that is how my husband likes it. Since it is our Anniversary, presenting one of the much-cherished desserts and an integral part of our wedding menu.

Today, I am celebrating five years of blogging and 23 years of our togetherness with the much-loved sweet of my Husband, Kesari bath.

It is a simple sweet, with minimal ingredients like Bansi Rava, Sugar, Saffron and ghee, garnished with ghee fried cashews and raisins. Earlier I used to eyeball the measurements and prepare. The traditional measure and this foolproof recipe, which we cherish, is by my friend Madhu.

For measurements, use any tumbler of your choice.

Ingredients:

Bansi Rava- 1cup

Water-3cup

Sugar – 1 ½ to 2 cups ( Acc to your sweet level)

Salt – ¼ tsp

Cardamom powder – 1 tsp

Saffron – 10 to 12 strings (soak it in hot water or milk)

Ghee- ½ cup or a little more, as needed.

Cashews 10-15

Dry grapes- 15-20

Method:

-Take a small cup, add saffron, pour little hot milk or water, and allow soak.

-Keep water to boil in a saucepan.

-In a pan, add a tablespoon of ghee, fry cashew and dry grapes and keep aside.

-In the same pan, roast Bansi Rava till a pleasant aroma comes and turns grainy.

-Add salt and pour boiling water and allow to cook on a low flame.

– Once Rava is cooked, add sugar stir well to make sure there is no lump.

-While stirring, In every small interval, add ghee and proceed to stir.

– After 10 minutes of stirring, you can add saffron laced milk and mix well.

– Keep adding ghee little by little and mix well. Cook this mixture until ghee starts leaving from the sides. Finally, add cardamom powder, dry fruits mix well.

Serve hot.

NOTE:

If you wish to make square pieces out of it, when the Kesari bath is done, Spread the content on a ghee applied plate.

Allow to cool, mark the shape, get the perfectly shaped pieces, and store them in an air-tight container.

Gujiya / Dry fruits Karanji/ Karjikai:

November 5, 2018

Deepavali aka Diwali is an important festival of India and is spread between three days. Indian festivals are incomplete without sweets and savouries. In India, each festival has its own significance in celebration as well as its menu. Gujiya is one of them and has a very important role during Diwali.

Gujiya is a deep-fried flour-based delicacy, with different fillings in different regions. It is known by a different name in each region. Outer cover will be the same and inner stuffing varies from Rava – sugar, coconut – jaggery, coconut – sugar, mawa (milk solids) with dry fruits or with only dry fruits are traditionally seen. Nowadays you get to see so many variations from chocolate to cheese filling as well as baked version.

In North India, after frying the Gujiya, they usually dip it in a sugar syrup and outer cover would be wet and shiny. In south India, we normally deep fry and serve as it is and it’s known as Karanji / Karjikai.

I used to follow Chef Sanjeev Kapoor and learnt so many recipes from him and this is one such recipe. Over the years, I tweaked it a little and adjusted it according to our taste and it has one added advantage of longer shelf life, due to the usage of milkmaid instead of khoya.

Ingredients:

For the outer cover / shell:

All-purpose flour – 2 ½ cups

Salt – ¼ tsp

Ghee – 6 table spoons

Water – As needed (normal water)

Oil – for Deep frying

For the stuffing /filling:

Desiccated coconut – 200 grams

Semolina – 2 table spoons

Almonds – ¼ cup

Cashew – ¼ cup

Raisin – ¼ cup

Cardamom – 1 tsp

Condensed milk – 1 tin (400 grams)

Method:

For the outer cover-

-In a bowl, add flour and pour ghee. Rub the ghee and flour by using your hand for 5 to 10 minutes.

-After a while, flour would resemble like a semi wet crumb.

-Now add required amount of water to make a firm dough.

-Cover the dough with wet cloth and keep aside for half an hour.

Note: Dough approximately holds ½ cup of water.

In the meantime, prepare the stuffing –

-Roast semolina in a low flame, switch off the gas. Mix in all the other ingredients from almond to condensed milk.

-Keep it until mixture is non-sticky while touching.

-Now comes the actual procedure. You can use three methods.

Use Gujiya mould.

2.Take a dough, roll into big thin circle, use cookie cutter to make small, uniform circle.

Take little dough, make small poori like discs.

Here I have followed the third method.

This quantity has yielded 28 Gujiya.

-Divide the dough, make roundels, fill the stuffing, close into half.

-Dip your hand in water, now, start folding the edges from one corner and go on folding like a half diamond shape at regular intervals until you reach the other end.

-Keep this ready, stuffed, yet to fry Gujiya to air dry.

-Repeat the procedure and finish off the filling work.

-Heat the oil for deep frying in low temperature.

-When oil is hot, drop one by one Gujiya, fry in a low flame to get good results.

-When everything is fried and cooled, store it in an air tight container.

NOTE:

To get a perfect Gujiya – these points are very important.

1- Rubbing the ghee + flour.

2-Frying in a low fire

Banana Halwa:

November 3, 2018

Banana or Plantain Halwa was an integral part of my childhood. Usually this Halwa is made by using Kerala big banana which is called as” Nendra variety” but in our home, we used to have lots of overripe bananas from our family farm. To finish off all those overripe small bananas (Kadali variety of Mangalore), amma used to make Halwa or Banana Preserve/ Berati all the time. It was a very regular sweet at our house hold. Today I will share this recipe to all our readers-

Ingredients:

Over ripe banana – 22

Sugar – 1 bowl

Ghee – ½ to ¾ cup

Cashew nuts – 2 tbl sp.

Method:

-Put all the peeled bananas to mixer grinder and make a smooth paste. Measure this by using any bowl of your choice.

-If this paste is 3 cups in quantity take one cup of sugar in that same measurement cup. So, your ratio of banana paste and sugar will be 3:1.

-Fry cashew bits in a teaspoon of ghee and keep aside. Grease one plate with ghee and keep it ready.

-Take one thick bottomed kadai, put this paste and keep gas flame in a very low flame and cook for a while.

-When it changes its colour to milky white and then to a pale colour and when you smell the banana flavour in the air, add sugar and mix this in at a regular interval.

-Add ghee 2 table spoons at a time in-between while stirring. If you feel that the banana paste needs a little more ghee, add up to ¾ cup, some varieties of bananas need very less ghee and some need more.

-Now we will see, how we decide the quantity of ghee. While stirring if you feel that the mixture is a little dry and the bottom part becomes a little brown, keep adding it.

-If the ghee starts oozing at the sides, it is an indication to stop the addition of ghee.

-Now we will see how you know the doneness. It is very simple, keep on stirring until mixture leaves the sides of the kadai and ghee oozes out from the mixture.

-You can add cashew pieces at this stage or spread those pieces in a greased plate like me. After you are done with this, it is almost ready to shift to the plate.

-Before shifting I prefer to check, by taking one small peanut sized portion of the mixture and rolling it in-between your thumb and forefinger to make a small ball like structure. If it holds a ball like structure and does not stick to your finger, it is ready.

-Now remove from the flame, shift to a greased plate and pat this mixture evenly by using a flat, greased (apply some ghee) back of the spoon.

-Keep this aside for two or three hours to cool. Then cut this into the desired shape and store it in an airtight container.

-You can store this Halwa for a really long time (up to a month or two).

Shankarpali/Diamond biscuits:

October 14, 2017

Shankarpali is a traditional Maharashtrian, deep-fried snack. It was introduced to us by our neighbour aunty. It is a very light, flaky, melt-in-the-mouth, a small, irresistible cookie that is deep-fried and not baked. It has a good shelf life, and one can enjoy it even after Diwali.

Traditionally, Shankarpali is made by using All-purpose flour. Here, I have used Whole wheat flour and oat flour and did not feel any change other than the colour of the final product.

If you want to use All-purpose flour, follow this recipe, replace the flour, and proceed.

Ingredients:

Milk – 1 cup

Ghee – ½ cup

Sugar – ¾ cup ( I have used Brown sugar)

Salt – 1 tsp

Cooking Soda – ¼ tsp

Flour – 3 ½ to 4 cups (as required) ( All-purpose flour OR Whole Wheat and Oat Flour)

Oil – to deep fry.

Method:

-Take one bowl or food processor, beat milk, ghee and sugar until frothy.

-In another bowl, take 2 cups of whole wheat flour and ½ cup of oats flour, salt, cooking soda and dry mix everything.

-Add the mixed flour to the liquid ( beaten milk and sugar), add some more whole wheat flour and make a soft, pliable dough by adding whole wheat flour little by little.

– Cover this bowl and keep it aside for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, Keep the oil on a low flame to deep frying.

-Take a small portion of the dough, roll it into a thick ¼ inch circle, like a Roti. Remove the outer curved portion and make a square. ( it is optional to get only square pieces)

-Take a pizza cutter or any other zigzag cutter and cut this flattened disc. Now deep fry it on a low flame.

-When it becomes light brown, take it out and spread it on a tissue paper laid plate.

-When it is cool, store this in an airtight container.

NOTE: Keep the gas flame to a simmer and maintain the temperature of the oil. If oil is overheated, the shankarpali would turn into deep brown/ half-done and charred.