Kaju Burfi or Kaju Katli...something sweet and simple for Diwali !

Happy Diwali to all my dear readers and friends. Today we celebrate the Festival of Lights, the triumph of good over evil . We burst firecrackers which actually signifies driving away evil spirits , wear new clothes, eat and share lots of delicious sweets and food with friends and family.

What I really love about Diwali the most is bursting firecrackers...nothing beats it!! And I was so happy that we were actually able to play with some crackers and watch the fireworks tonight here in Minneapolis and we totally enjoyed each minute of it.

Preparing or buying sweets and snacks to share with your friends and family is another reason I love Diwali so much :-) For my very first Diwali after my wedding, I was very much in an experimenting mood, so I made Karanji, Chakli and Besan Laddoo, all for the very first time and they came out great!  I will definitely post about them soon. We had cleaned up the whole house and decorated everywhere with beautiful diyas(candles). And bursted lots of crackers...Oh! we had soooo much fun.

This year also I prepared few sweets, but most of them got over before I could photograph them :-P But I made these Kaju Katli specially for my office friends, so I was able to keep them safe and take few quick snaps :-) Its really easy to prepare them and I don't know why I never made them before. I found a simple recipe here and it came out really well. 

I made about 10-15 small sized Kaju katli with this recipe. You can make this Kaju Katli in less than 30minutes (if done correctly), I'll guarantee you that!!

Kaju Katli Recipe

You'll need

Cashewnuts - 1 cup (at room temperature)

Sugar - 1/2 cup (heaped)

Water - 1/4 cup

Milk - 1-2 tblsp (use as required)

Ghee - to grease the hands and plate

Directions

1. Grind the cashewnuts into fine powder. It may stick while grinding, thats ok, just scoop it around with a spatula and keep grinding until its a fine dust like powder. Take out a heaping 1 cup from this.

2. Boil the sugar with water until you reach a consistency where, if you add a drop of sugar syrup into a bowl with water, the sugar syrup should not dissolve and appears like a fine thread or drop.

3. At this point add in the cashew powder and on medium-low flame keep stirring until a smooth dough like consistency is obtained. About 3-5mins.

4. Grease a plate with little ghee and transfer this dough like mixture onto the plate

5. Allow to cool down for 10mins and then grease your palms with ghee and start kneading the dough. Add little milk, only if the dough appears hard and dry. Do not add too much milk.

6. Slowly keep kneading the dough until it becomes smooth and easily pliable.

7. Roll the dough into a 1/4 inch thick circle or square, and cut them diagonally to get the diamond shape. (First make a soft line with your knife on the rolled dough before cutting and then cut over that line)

Silver Decoration

I wanted the silver foil appearance on top of the kaju katli, which is how we usually get it back home in India. Since I din't have any silver foil, I used edible Silver Dust that's commonly used for Cake decoration :-)

I cut out a diamond shape in a small parchment paper and placed it on top of each Kaju Katli and applied the Silver dust with a brush...Simple!! :-)

Suggestions:

1. Its very important that the cashews should be at room temperature , or else it may get all sticky while grinding

2. The correct sugar syrup consistency is very important again in getting this burfi/katli right.

3. Milk is only required if the dough appears dry or hard. Adding milk will reduce the shelf life if kept out, so keep them refrigerated.

So try out these simple, beautiful and yummy Kaju burfi and let me know how they turned out :-) And once again wishing you all a very Happy Diwali !!

-Manju