Diwali Sweets

Diwali is a festival not just for lights, lamps and firecrackers, but for some mouth-watering delights as well. Each region of India has its own traditional variety of sweets made specifically for this festival. Bottomline is that we get a good opportunity to eat lots of sweets :)

Here are the sweets and snacks that I made for this Diwali,
Mysore Pak (The one in the middle of the picture)
Diamond Cuts (The diamond shaped pieces)
Adhirasam
Rava Paniyaram
Laddu
Channa Dal Vadai (This is the only kaara that I made)

Adhirasam

Adhirasams that my grandmother makes when I was little can never be forgotten. She gets us a big box of murukku and adhirasams every time we meet. I love those yummy adhirasams. My mother in law makes good adhirasams too. I called her to take her recipe and it turned out awesome.

Ingredients:

Manda Vellam (Jaggary) - 1 medium sized
Basmathi Rice - 2 cups
elachi crushed - 5

Preparation:

1. Soak the rice in water for 3 hours. Drain the water and spread the rice in a clean washed towel.
2. Grind the Rice in a mixie without adding any water. Make it like a powder. Use a sieve and keep filtering until the rice is evenly powdered.
3. Add the completely crushed elachi into the powdered rice.
4. Take water just to cover the vellam in a pan and heat it till the vellam melts completely in water.
5. Continue to heat in medium flame until you reach the required consistency of the syrup.
6. If you take a drop of the syrup and put in cold water it should form a ball. Keep checking for this consistency. Do not make it thicker than that. The consistency is very important to make soft adhirasams without cracks. Turn the stove off.
7. Slowly add the syrup to the powdered rice. Make a dough. Do not make the dough very thick like chapatti flour. MAke it little sticky because the flour continues to thicken.
8. Leave the flour for one day.
9. Make small balls and flatten it by pressing with your hands and deep fry it in oil. The adhirasams becomes pluffy and you can press the adhirasams between 2 thick spoons and drain out the excess oil and place it in a paper towel.
10. Adhirasams are initially crispy, but they turn soft after it comes down to the room temperature.

Channa dal vada

We call it aama vada. I used only channa dal for this vada. You can use the other dals too for this vada. Here is the recipe,


Ingredients:

Channa dal - 2 cups
onions chopped - 1/2 cup
green chillies chopped - 4
curry leaves chopped - 8
corriander leaves chopped - handful
fennel seeds - 1 tsp

Preparation:

1. Soak the channa dal in water for 3 hours
2. Drain the water and grind it with the mixie without adding water. Do not mash it. Grind it coarse along with the fennel seeds.
3. Mix it with salt, onions, green chillies, curry leaves, corriander leaves.
4. Make small balls and flatten it by pressing with your hands and deep fry it in oil.

Rava Paniyaram

A very simply dish again and is one of my favorites,


Ingredients:

Rava (Soji) - 1 cup
Maida - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
water - 1 cup
Oil - 1/2 cup (for frying)

Preparation:

1. Mix rava, maida, sugar and water into a dosa like batter and keep it aside for an hour.
2. Heat oil in a pan and pour the batter into the oil like you make bajji and deep fry.

Diamond Cuts

A quick snack that can be used especially during travel. Comes really handy then. This is a tasty, crispy and mildly sweet snack that kids will love. My daughter loved this snack, and suggested me making traingles, squares and circles rathan than just the diamonds :) Here is the recipe,

Ingredients:

Milk - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Ghee - 1/2 cup
Maida - just enough to hold
Oil - 1/2 cup (For frying)

Preparation:

1. Mix sugar, milk and ghee in a bowl until the sugar dissolves and everything is blended well.
2. Slowly add as much maida the dough will need to get a chappatti like consistency.
3. Roll it like chappattis and make horizontal and vertical lines at an angle such that you get all diamond shapes.
4. Deep fry in oil. After removing it from oil place them all in a paper towel to drain out excess oil.

Mysore Pak

Nothing can beat the Krishna Sweets Mysore Pak. My daughter is a big fan of it too. My mom always makes good mysore pak and she says this is the easiest sweet that you can make. She makes it sound very simple. It should probably take 30 minutes maximum. Here is the recipe,

Ingredients:

Gram flour - 1 cup
sugar - 2 cups
ghee - 1 cup

Preparation:

1. Heat the pan and fry the gram flour for a few minutes and keep it aside.
2. Take sugar and add water just to cover the sugar and let it boil.
3. Once the sugar is dissolved, start adding the gram flour in one hand simultaneouly stirring the solution so that no lumps are formed. Slowly add all the flour into the solution and mix thoroughly with a big heavy handled spoon.
4. Put the ghee bottle in the microwave and heat until it completely melts.
5. When the flour is blended well with the syrup, pour the melted ghee little by little and stir constantly.
6. Initially the ghee gets absorbed into the mixture. It reaches a point where the mixture will not take more ghee and will start letting the ghee out.
7. At this point remove the mixture (which is still semi solid) from stove and pour in a broad vessel. If you let it stay more than the semi solid consistency, the mysore pak will turn hard.
8. Let it cool and make pieces.

Note: Important thing to note is that do not make the sugar syrup thick. The sugar should just dissolve in water and should easily flow. If not the mysore pak will turn gummy.

Laddu

The famous laddu's are altime favorites for almost every kid. We take our daughter to the Balaji temple here and my daughter will never forget to buy her laddu and will not give it to anybody else. She calls it a laddu temple :) I was married 6 years back and I was so much surprised when my mother in law had made a bucket full of laddus and packed for us while we left india to the USA. Those were amazing laddus and I always wanted to make such good laddus but never had the time to do so. Finally my dreams came true when I felt so good after making these laddus this time. Here is the recipe,

Ingredients:

Gram flour - 2 cups
Sugar - 2 cups
casews - handful
Ghee - Just for frying the casews
Oil - 1 cup (for frying the boondis)


Preparation of the boondis:

1. To the gram flour add very little water and make a batter. The batter should not be too thick or too watery. It should be of medium consistency like the iddly batter.
2. Heat the oil in the frying pan. Use the boondi making laddle (its a flat round laddle with small holes), to make the boondis. Keep the laddle on top of the oil at a distance and pour one big spoon full of the batter on the laddle. Tap gently with the spoon
3. Small droplets of dough falls in the oil and gets fried. When the boondis turn golden brown remove it and drain it in the paper towel to remove the excess oil.
4. After making all the boondis drop them all together inside the sugar syrup. Make sure the sugar syrup is just removed from the stove. It has to be warm. Mix it well and slightly grind it. (Dont mash it. Just the boondis should be broken. )
5. Fry casews in ghee and add it to the boondi mixture.
6. Make laddus when the mixture is lukewarm and you can hold them in hand. Its important to make the laddus when the mixture is warm otherwise, the sugar will crystallize and balls cannot be made.

Preparation of the sugar syrup:

1. Take the sugar in a separate pan and add water just to cover the sugar and turn the stove on.
2. Heat till the sugar is dissolved stirring it in between. When the sugar is completely disssoved, allow the syrup to boil until the required consistency is reached.
3. The sugar syrup when you touch with your thumb and forefinger it should form a string. turn off the stove once this consistency is reached.