Kesar Penda (केसर पेंडा )

Penda is sweet which is made from milk mawa. Mainly there are two type of it white penda and kesar penda which has saffron init. Many put orange color with saffron.  When you don't get mawa and you want to make this yummy sweet, use ricotta cheese as substitute for mawa.

Ingredients:-
(1). 15 oz organic ricotta cheese
(2). pinch of saffron
(3). 1 teaspoon cardamom powder
(4). 2 teaspoon of charoli
(5). 1/4 cup chopped almond
(6). 1/4 cup chopped pistachio
(7). 2 cup organic sugar or to taste

Mawa Recipe:-
Take nonstick pan and coat it with unsalted butter. Start the stove on medium flame and add ricotta cheese in it. Stir ricotta cheese occasionally. Cook ricotta cheese until all water from cheese evaporates. It will take roughly about 10-15 minutes. At this point your mawa is ready.

Penda Recipe:-
Now to make Penda add sugar and saffron in it and mix it well. Cook for another  5 minutes, so that water from sugar also goes away. Switch of the stove. Add cardamom powder and mix it well.

Now make small balls and shape it in any shape you like. Decor each penda with 3 to 4 pieces of charoli, 3-4 piece of almond and 3-4 piece of pistachio.

Enjoy.

Kesar Penda

Kesar Penda

Tips:-
You can use mawa to make gulab jamun, carrot halwa, launki(bottle gaurd) halwa or barfi .

Besan Halwa With Dates(बेसन हलवा)

While growing up my mom used to make Besan Sheero or Halwa for us and it was my favorite sweet dish. Now same dish my mother makes for her grand kid, the difference is she uses Dates to sweeten the Halwa in place of sugar. So it is more healthy.

Ingredients:-

(1). 2 tablespoon chickpea flour(Besan)

(2). 5 tablespoon  dry nut powder (cashew, almond, walnut, pistachio etc)

(3). 3-4 tablespoon ghee

(4). 1 cup milk

(5). 8 peeled and pitted Medjool dates
(6). pinch of saffron

Recipe:-
Chopped dates into small pieces. In cup take milk and add chopped dates init. Boil the milk in microwave for 2 minutes.

In nonstick pan take 2 tablespoon of ghee. Once ghee melts completely add Besan flour and mix Besan in ghee so that there is no lumps. Stir constantly. Cook for Besan for 2 minutes on medium flame. Add dry nut powder init and cook for another 2 minutes. Add boiled milk into cooking Halwa, stir milk so it doesn't stick and mix well in Halwa. Add saffron and mix well into Halwa. At this point add one table spoon of ghee. Stir Halwa and let it cook for another 4-5 minutes on low to medium heat.

Switch of stove and serve hot in bowl with some chopped nut on top.

Peeled and Pitted Dates

Besan flour

Mixed Nut Powder

Mixing Besan Flour in Ghee

Adding Nut Powder

Adding Boiled Date Milk

Cooking Nuts with Besan

Adding Saffron

         Cooked Besan Halwa

Besan Halwa

Tips:-
If you are using this for small babies who are 7 months and up , update above recipe with following modifications.

• Drained the boiled date milk using colander before adding in halwa to makesure there is no chunks
• Instead of 1 cup milk take 1.5 cup milk so that Halwa will be like Gujarati Raab ( gravy form) so that babies can swallow easily.
• Either you can avoid nuts or grind nuts to almost paste form before adding in halwa.