From Jalebi to Moong Dal Halwa: 4 must-try Indian sweets recipes ahead of Diwali

With the festival of lights around the corner, these traditional Indian sweets are just what you need to relish the celebratory spirit with your loved ones

Jalebi

Ingredients

Method

Take 300 gms of refined flour in a bowl, add 1½ cups of water and beat with hand for 15-20 minutes to make a light, smooth batter. Cover the bowl and keep in a warm place to ferment for 12 hours.

Cook sugar with 150ml water in a deep non-stick pan on high heat, stirring continuously. Add milk, mix well and bring it to boil. Discard the scum that will rise to the top.

Add saffron and green cardamom powder and mix well. Cook till the sugar syrup reaches one string consistency.

Add the remaining flour to the fermented batter and mix well with your hand.

Heat sufficient ghee in a kadai on medium heat. Pour the fermented jalebi batter in jalebi cloth and pipe the spirals directly into moderately hot ghee and deep-fry till crisp.

Drain and soak in sugar syrup for 5-10 minutes.

Remove from the sugar syrup and place them on a serving platter. Garnish with pistachios and serve hot.

Moong Dal Halwa

Ingredients

Method

Heat 50 gms of ghee in a non-stick pan.

Add moong dal, lower the heat and mix well.

Sauté, stirring continuously, till moong dal turns a little golden in colour, for 20-25 minutes.

Then add 50 grams of ghee and cook for 10 to 20 Minutes

Heat water and sugar in another non-stick pan. Add a generous pinch of saffron and mix well. Cook till sugar dissolves completely. Switch off heat.

Add khoya to moong dal mixture along with cardamom powder, some almond slivers and sugar syrup.

Mix well, cover and cook on low heat for 2 minutes, stirring once in a while. Remove lid, mix once. Switch off heat and transfer it into a serving dish.

Serve hot, garnished with silver foil (Varaq) , saffron and remaining almond slivers.

Kaju Katli

Ingredients

Method

Heat a non-stick pan, add sugar, and water and bring to a boil.

Add milk, mix and cook till the sugar melts. Discard the scum that gathers at the sides and cook till the mixture reaches multi-string consistency.

Add ghee and mix well. Add cashew nut powder and mix till it is well-incorporated.

Transfer into a bowl. Grease your palms with some ghee and knead the cashew nut mixture till it resembles a dough.

Grease an aluminium barfi tray with some ghee. Take a portion of the mixture and spread evenly with your hand. Further level the surface with a rolling pin. Trim the excess from the edges.

Cover the top with silver foil (varaq) and set aside to cool for 30 minutes.

Cut into diamonds and serve.

Coconut Barfi

Ingredients

Method

Heat a non-stick pan on medium heat. Add the coconut, sugar, fresh cream and green cardamom powder and cook, stirring continuously, for fifteen minutes or till the mixtures turns a thick batter.

Remove from the heat, add saffron, grease a thali with ghee and pour in the coconut mixture and spread evenly.

When it cools, cut into diamonds or squares and serve. You can store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for about a week.

Sawai Singh is Head Chef at Sagar Ratna