Refraining from Eating Diwali Market Sweets? Prepare at Home Now.
No Indian festival can be complete without sweets and savouries. While almost everyone loves to have them sitting around with friends and family, not many know how to prepare them at home. Today most of us prefer turning to readymade sweets and chocolate boxes and a variety of snacks packed up for them.
Though it might seem very tedious and scary to try the complicated looking gujiyas and the kid-friendly chocolates, we have easy to try recipes for Diwali sweets and snacks to help you prepare them at home this Diwali.
Recipes for the 4 most popular sweets and savouries prepared during the Diwali festival.
1. Monthal or Mohan Thal
Monthal is a traditional Rajasthani sweet prepared with roasted gram flour (besan), sugar, dry fruits and enriched with khoya. This easy to prepare sweet is considered to be one of the favorite sweets of Lord Krishna. Let’s see the recipe for Monthal.
Ingredients
Gram flour (besan) – 100 g
Ghee - 100 g
Milk - 2 table spoons
Sugar - 100 g
Mawa - 100 g
Cashewnuts, Almonds and Pistachio (pishta) – 10 each (finely chopped)
Small cardamom - 5-6 (peeled and grinded)
Directions
1. Take sieved besan (gram flour) of thick granules in a bowl and add 2 tea spoons ghee to it and mix well.
2. Kneed the mixture in milk to make dough. Cover the dough and keep it aside for 20 minutes.
3. Add sugar and water in equal quantities to form sugar syrup (chashni). Keep aside a few almonds and pistachios for garnishing and add the rest of the dry fruits to this sugar syrup.
4. Take a big pan and heat some oil. Fry the dough you prepared into this oil. Once you get to smell the fragrance of roasted besan from the oil, add mawa into it and stir well.
5. Wait for the mixture of besan and mawa to turn brown. Pour the prepared chashni into the mixture and cook for 6-7 minutes.
6. Take a plate, grease it well so that the mixture doesn’t stick to it and then spread the mixture over it evenly. Garnish with chopped almonds and pistachios. Let it freeze in 3-4 hours by leaving it still.
7. Cut the sweet into small pieces in the shape you like and your Monthal is ready to be served. You can store it in an air-tight container. It can be refrigerated for 2 weeks.
2. Mathri
Mathri is an all-time favourite Indian snack recipe that tastes good with tea and even without it. It gives a spiced salty taste. Let’s see the recipe for mathri.
Ingredients
1 cup wheat flour (atta)
¾-1 cup white flour (maida)
1 teaspoon ajwain (carom seeds)
1 teaspoon crushed black pepper (kali mirch powder) – optional
1 teaspoon cumin seeds (jeera) – optional
¼ teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoon ghee
½-¾ cup water
Salt
Oil for frying
Few black peppercorns (sabut kali mirch) - optional
Directions
1. Sieve atta (wheat flour), maida (white flour), cooking soda and salt together. Add ajwain and ghee and mix them with the flours together.
2. Kneed the mixture with warm water to form dough. Ensure that the dough isn’t soft but a little tight and hard one.
3. Make mathris in the shape you like. Circular ones are the most popular ones. They should be a bit thick.
4. Do some holes by hitting knife’s tip into the mathris to prevent them from rising up like puris.
5. Fry the mathris in low to medium flame till they turn light brown and crispy.
6. Serve them with tea or with pickle.
3. Chocolate
Many people are seen refraining from sweets these days. But you fill seldom find one who says ‘no’ to a chocolate. So why not prepare fresh homemade chocolates to surprise your kids and guests this Diwali! This kid-friendly dessert takes far less effort and time than you might think of. So, let’s find out the recipe for chocolates.
Ingredients
Cocoa powder – 220 g (2 cups)
Sugar – 120 g (half cup)
Milk – 150 ml (2/3rd of a cup)
Butter – 160 g (3/4th of a cup)
Water – 230 ml (1 cup)
Flour – 30 g (1/4th of a cup)
Vanilla essence
Nuts – optional
Directions
1. Put cocoa powder in a bowl and add butter. Use a spoon to crush down the bigger pieces of cocoa powder. Blend the two together to turn them into a fine paste.
2. Take out the paste into a pan and heat it by adding water until the mixture is hot but not boiling.
3. Put the fluid in a bowl and add milk, flour and sugar into it while it is still hot. Blend them well until you get rid of all lumps.
4. Now pour this chocolate paste in moulds of different sizes and shapes. You can also make use of ice cube trays or bowls. Freeze them in the freezer for at least 6 hours.
5. Once it gets freezed, remove the chocolates from the moulds and enjoy your homemade chocolates. You can also wrap them in glittering gift wrap papers and present them as gifts to special guests.
4. Gujiya
Gujiya is one of the most popular Diwali sweets, also prepared on Holi. The deep fried pastry is stuffed with a sweet khoya filling and served after they cool down. It can be stored in an air-tight box for some days. The recipe of Gujiya is as follows:
Ingredients
1. For gujiya pastry
1 cup wheat flour (atta)
1 cup maida (white flour)
¼ tsp salt
1/3 - ½ cup water
2 tbsp ghee
2. For gujiya stuffing
1 cup khoya tightly packed
½ tbsp ghee
1/3 cup chopped dry fruits including cashewnuts, almonds, pistachios and raisins
1/3 cup powdered sugar
½ tsp cardamom powder
Directions
1. For gujiya pastry
1. Heat ghee in a small pan.
2. Take maida, atta and salt in a bowl and pour the heated ghee on them. Mash it together with your fingertips.
3. Then knead the mixture into dough using water till it gets firm. Cover this dough with a moist cloth and keep it aside for 30 minutes.
2. For gujiya stuffing
1. Melt ghee in a pan on low flame.
2. Crumble and grate khoya and put it into the hot ghee. Stir continuously on low heat till the khoya begins to gather around itself. Switch the flame off and keep the pan aside, allowing khoya to cool down.
3. Once the khoya cools down completely, add chopped dry fruits, powdered sugar and cardamom powder to it. And blend everything well. Taste the stuffing and add more sugar if you feel like, depending on your preferred taste.
3. For finally preparing gujiyas
1. Dust the rolling board lightly with some flour.
2. Take small balls of the dough to roll them into a small circle. Avoid using too much of flour while rolling.
3. Apply water all over the circumference edge of the rolled dough with your fingertip.
4. Place about 1 tbsp of khoya filling on one side of the circle, keeping edges empty. Don’t add too much of stuffing so as to make it easier for you to shape it in the form of gujiya and to prevent the gujiya from breaking into the oil.
5. Carefully bring together both the edges and join them. Gently press the edges.
6. Make pleated design at the edges. Ensure that the gujiya is sealed well before you do this. This will ensure that the stuffing doesn’t come out. And the gujiyas look good too.
7. Deep fry them till they turn golden brown. Drain extra oil on kitchen paper tissues.
8. Let them cool down. Store in an air-tight container and serve them to your family and guests when required.
Try preparing these yummy Diwali sweets and snacks at home this Diwali and surprise your loved ones and guests with homemade delicacies. Happy Diwali!
