The sweets in this article share three qualities: they use ingredients from an ordinary Indian kitchen, they need nothing more than a heavy pan and a plate, and they are done in under an hour including cooling. Each makes about 20 pieces, enough for the puja, the family and two neighbours.
Quantities are in cups and grams. A cup here is 240 ml. Ghee is assumed unless stated; oil works in a pinch but the taste is not the same.
1. Besan ladoo (35 minutes)
The gram-flour ladoo is the home sweet of north and west India. The only skill is patience while roasting.
Ingredients
- Besan (gram flour), 2 cups (about 200 g), coarse if you can get it
- Ghee, ½ cup (about 110 g)
- Powdered sugar, ¾ cup (about 100 g); grind ordinary sugar in a mixer
- Cardamom powder, ½ teaspoon
- Chopped almonds or pistachios, 2 tablespoons (optional)
Method
- Heat the ghee in a heavy kadhai on low. Add the besan.
- Stir continuously on low heat. For the first 10 minutes it will look dry and lumpy; keep going. Around 15 minutes it loosens, turns a shade darker and smells nutty. At 20 to 22 minutes it is deep golden and pours like thick batter. Stop here.
- Take off the heat; stir for another minute so the bottom does not catch.
- Let it cool for 10 minutes until warm, not hot. If you add sugar while hot, it melts and the ladoos will not hold.
- Mix in sugar, cardamom and nuts.
- Take a heaped tablespoon and press into a ball with your palm. Roll until smooth. Repeat.
What goes wrong: under-roasting. If the ladoo tastes of raw flour, the besan needed five more minutes. There is no shortcut for the 20 minutes of stirring.
Keeps: 3 weeks in an airtight box at room temperature.
2. Coconut barfi (30 minutes)
Two ingredients and milk. Made in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra kitchens for every festival.
Ingredients
- Fresh grated coconut, 2 cups (or desiccated coconut, 1½ cups, soaked in ¼ cup warm milk for 10 minutes)
- Sugar, 1 cup (about 200 g)
- Milk, ½ cup
- Ghee, 2 tablespoons
- Cardamom powder, ½ teaspoon
- A pinch of saffron or a few drops of rose water (optional)
Method
- Grease a plate or a small tray with ghee.
- In a heavy pan, combine coconut, sugar and milk. Cook on medium, stirring, for 12 to 15 minutes. The mixture will bubble, thicken and start to leave the sides of the pan.
- Add the ghee and cardamom. Cook 2 more minutes until it forms a soft mass that holds together when pushed.
- Pour onto the greased plate and press flat with a spatula to about 1.5 cm thick.
- Cool 15 minutes. Cut into squares or diamonds while still slightly warm.
What goes wrong: cooking too long makes it hard and crumbly; too short and it will not set. Test by dropping a small piece on a plate: it should hold its shape but still be soft.
Keeps: 5 days at room temperature, 10 days in the fridge.
3. Kaju katli (40 minutes)
Home kaju katli is not quite the shop version but it is close, and the difference is the freshness.
Ingredients
- Cashews, 1 cup (about 150 g), raw and unsalted, at room temperature
- Sugar, ½ cup (about 100 g)
- Water, ¼ cup
- Ghee, 1 teaspoon
- Cardamom powder, ¼ teaspoon
- Silver leaf (optional)
Method
- Grind the cashews to a fine powder in short pulses. Do not run the mixer continuously; the nuts release oil and become paste. Sieve out any large bits.
- In a non-stick or heavy pan, dissolve sugar in water and bring to a boil. Cook 4 to 5 minutes until it forms a single-thread consistency (a drop between finger and thumb pulls into one thread).
- Lower the heat. Add the cashew powder and stir continuously. Within 4 to 6 minutes it thickens into a soft dough that leaves the pan.
- Turn onto a greased plate or a sheet of baking paper. Add ghee and cardamom. Let it cool for 3 to 4 minutes until you can handle it, then knead for a minute until smooth.
- Place between two sheets of baking paper and roll to about 4 mm.
- Apply silver leaf if using. Cut into diamonds.
What goes wrong: the syrup. Under-cooked syrup gives sticky katli; over-cooked gives hard, sugary katli. The one-thread test is the whole recipe. And do not let the cashew powder turn to paste.
Keeps: 10 days at room temperature in an airtight box. If you would rather not risk the syrup, a sealed tray from a good local mithai shop is a perfectly respectable alternative.
4. Dry fruit ladoo (20 minutes, no cooking)
No sugar, no ghee, no stove. Dates hold it together. The sweet for anyone avoiding sugar and for children.
Ingredients
- Seedless dates, 1½ cups (about 250 g), soft variety
- Mixed nuts (almonds, cashews, walnuts, pistachios), 1 cup, roughly chopped
- Raisins, ¼ cup
- Desiccated coconut, 2 tablespoons
- Cardamom powder, ½ teaspoon
- A tablespoon of ghee for the hands (optional)
Method
- If the dates are firm, warm them in a dry pan for 2 minutes to soften.
- Toast the nuts in a dry pan for 3 minutes until fragrant. Cool.
- Pulse the dates in a mixer into a coarse paste.
- Mix in the nuts, raisins, coconut and cardamom by hand.
- Grease palms lightly; roll into balls the size of a small lime.
What goes wrong: hard dates that will not bind. Use the soft, sticky kind, or soak firm ones in warm water for 15 minutes and drain well.
Keeps: 2 weeks in the fridge, 5 days at room temperature. Buy the nuts whole from a busy dry fruit shop, where stock turns over quickly.
5. Rava ladoo (30 minutes)
Semolina ladoo, the south Indian and Maharashtrian cousin of besan ladoo. Sweeter, softer, and faster.
Ingredients
- Fine rava (semolina), 1 cup (about 180 g)
- Ghee, ¼ cup
- Sugar, ¾ cup, powdered
- Milk, ¼ cup, warm
- Desiccated coconut, ¼ cup (optional)
- Cardamom powder, ½ teaspoon
- Cashews and raisins, 2 tablespoons, fried in a little ghee
Method
- Heat ghee in a pan on low. Add rava and roast, stirring, for 8 to 10 minutes until it smells toasty and turns pale gold. Do not brown it.
- Add coconut if using; roast 2 more minutes.
- Take off the heat. Mix in powdered sugar, cardamom and the fried cashews and raisins.
- Add warm milk a tablespoon at a time, mixing, until the mixture just holds when pressed. You may not need all of it.
- Roll into ladoos while warm. They firm up as they cool.
What goes wrong: too much milk makes them soggy and they spoil in two days. Add it slowly.
Keeps: 4 to 5 days at room temperature (the milk limits it), a week in the fridge.
General notes
- Ghee quality matters more than anything else. Use a good one, and if you buy it for the festival, buy it fresh.
- Powder the sugar yourself. Shop-bought icing sugar has cornflour, which dulls the taste.
- A heavy pan, low heat, and stirring. Every one of these recipes burns in a thin pan on medium.
- Weigh once. If you make the same sweet every year, note the weight of the ingredients that worked and use it next time.
- Serve on a thali, not from the box. The presentation is part of it.
For the story behind these sweets and what a good shop-made one should taste like, read classic Diwali sweets and where they come from. For the savoury half of the platter, namkeen, chakli and mathri. For picking good nuts for these recipes, see the dry fruit gifting guide.