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August 16, 2014

7 cups to Heaven - 7-cup Barfi for Janmashtami



For the longest time, I stayed away from even attempting to make Indian sweets. I even stayed away from thinking about making them. When it came to celebrating festivals, I always made my own rules. Why might Krishna only want uppu seedai and vella seedai for Janmashtami. Why not chocolate cookies? Or buns? Why make Indian sweets and savouries for Deepavali. Why not cookies and cakes again? You get the drift, don't you? I simply didn't want to move out of my comfort zone. So, I found every excuse not to.

A few years ago, I was a visiting with a friend and she had made a snack with beaten rice and a sweet. I asked her if she'd brought the sweet from India or if one of her family members had visited. She told me that she'd made it herself. I immediately asked her for the recipe and made it soon after. Three years later, it remains the only Indian elbow greasy sweet I can make confidently. 


1 cup Ghee
1 cup Besan
1 cup Milk
1 cup Almond Meal/ Dessicated Coconut (or a combination of the two)
3 cups Sugar
Cardamom and Saffron to taste
1 tbsp Ghee for greasing the plate/cake tin

Grease a large thali or plate and keep aside. (I've even used cake tins when I didn't own a thali.)

Heat 1/2 cup ghee in a heavy bottomed pan. Add the besan and fry it until the raw smell of besan goes and you are left with the wonderful aroma. To this, add the milk carefully. Add all the other ingredients, including the remaining 1/2 cup ghee. Keep stirring until the mixture comes together and begins to leave the sides of the pan.

Transfer to the greased thali/plate and smooth the mixture down carefully. Cool it a little. Cut it into diamond shapes with a sharp knife or a pizza cutter. When fully cool, store the pieces in an air tight container.

Be sure to share this with your friends and family. You may want to hand out recipe cards with this as people are bound to ask you for the recipe. Especially if you're like me and no one associates any traditional sweets with you, they're probably thinking - if she can make it, why not I?

On that happy note, let me sign off while wishing all of you a Happy Janmashtami.

Check out some other not so traditional Janmashtami recipes on the blog here.

1 comment:

Sanjay said...

This sounds so simple. Will give it a try