Diwali Treats...

I had a wonderful time this Diwali. Thank God it was during the weekend. We spent the whole day in true Diwali spirit. Visited the temple in the morning and spent the rest of the day visiting friends and distributing sweets.

I wanted to make everything that mom usually makes at home, so here are the recipes for all the above treats...

Ribbon Pakoda

Basically rice flour and besan should be in the proportion of 1:2, the spices can be added according to individual tastes. I used the below measurements.

Ingredients:

3 cups rice flour

1 1/2 cups besan

1 1/2 tbs butter, melted

1 1/2 tbs red chilli powder

1 tsp pepper powder

1 tsp hing

salt to taste

oil for deep frying

Method:

Mix together the flours, butter, spices and salt with enough water to make a smooth and soft dough.

Heat the oil. Using the appropriate attachment in the murukku maker, press the dough into the oil in small batches. Fry till crisp, about 2-3 mins.

Drain and when cool, store in air tight containers.

Besan Laddoo

Use the coarse besan thats available especially for the laddoos. If you don't have that, add rava to the laddoo, this also works great.

I'm not sure of the exact measurements I used this time, kind of lost track. But you can adjust the ingredients as required. So I'll just mention the ingredients and the method.

Ingredients:

Course besan (I used 4 cups)

Ghee

Sugar

Cardamom powder (Seeds of 6 cardamom pods crushed)

Raisins roasted in some ghee till it puffs

Method:

Heat 1/4th cup ghee in a pan. Add the besan and start roasting on medium low flame. The besan has to be roasted till it gives a nice aroma and the raw smell has completely gone. You need to do this on a low flame, so that it does not burn and change color quickly. It should have a nice golden brown color when roasted. It took me about 45 mins. I also added a few more tablespoons of ghee as I was roasting.

When done, remove from heat and add sugar and cardamom powder and mix well.

Add more ghee as required to form laddoos.

When cool enough to handle, make the laddoos adding raisins to each one.

ShankarPali

This is usually made using all purpose flour/ maida and lots of dalda and that also makes it really unhealthy. So mom usually makes this much simpler version and its just as yummy.

Ingredients:

2 cups wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour/ maida

1 tbs butter, softened

1 cup sugar (more or less according to taste)

oil for deep frying

Method:

Mix the flours, butter and sugar with water to make a soft dough. Knead well till its really smooth and almost elastic.

Cover and keep aside for 1 hour.

Heat the oil on medium heat.

Taking the dough in batches, roll it into circles of 2-3 mm thickness. Cut into small diamond shapes.

Lower the heat slightly and deep fry till brown and crisp.

Kaju Katli

This is one of my favorite sweets and its the fourth time I'm making it. Adapted the recipe from Recipes Here.

Ingredients:

1 heaping cup whole raw cashews

2/3 to 3/4 cup sugar, according to taste, I measure somewhere in between

1/4 cup water

3 cardamom pods, seeds crushed to a fine powder

1 tbs ghee

Method:

Grind the cashews to a fine powder.

Heat the sugar and water in a pan till the sugar melts and begins to boil.

Add in the cashew powder and mix over medium heat, removing lumps. Keep stirring till the mixture thickens and starts coming together.

remove from heat. It will thicken more as it cools. When cool enough to handle, add the ghee and cardamom powder and knead for 5 mins till smooth. Roll out to desired thickness and cut into diamond shapes.

Rava Laddoo

This is the same recipe from the Indian Cooking Challenge. Find it here.

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Sending all the above to Purva's Diwali Dhamaka.

Besan Laddoo, Shankar pali, Kaju Katli and Rava Laddoo goes to Sireesha's Sweet Series.

Besan Laddoo and Rava Laddoo goes to Sanghi's FIL: Ghee event.