Diwali Delicacy- Ghughra/ Karanji

Diwali time... Time to burst crackers, buy new clothes, cleaning of house and last but not the least kitchen smells of wonderful traditional sweets or snacks/farsan...

I know I am kind of late in uploading recipes. Better late than Never!!! Here I start with few of the sweets and snacks which we prepared at home for this diwali.

To start with- Ghughra or Karanji. It’s a famous Gujarati sweet. I and Mom got up early yesterday and started with preparing ghughra. It is sweet and delicious.

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Making time: 40 minutes

Makes- approx 40-50 nos

What goes in to make dough:

White refined flour (Maida)- ½ kg

Clarified butter (Melted ghee)- 2 tbl spn

Salt- a little

Water- 1 glass

What goes in to make stuffing:

Semolina (Rava) - ¼ kg

Clarified butter (Ghee) - ½ cup

Dessicated coconut (Niariyel khamman) - 100 gm (you will get this in any local kirana store)

Pistachio (Pista), powdered - 25 gm

Almond (Badam), powdered- 25 gm

Cashew (Kajju), powdered- 50 gm

Raisins (Kismis) - ½ cup

Sugar, fine powdered- 100 gm

Also we need,

Clarified Butter (Ghee) - to fry

Mould- Semi circle Ghughra mould 

How did we make it:

First of all, grind sugar in a mixture grinder into fine powder. Then in the grinder grind badam, pista and cashew into coarse powder separately.

Then in a large cooking pan, roast rawa with ghee stirring it continuously till rawa turn a little pinkish. This will take about 5 minutes. Keep it aside and let it cool so that we can prepare the stuffing.

By the time rawa cools, Mom prepared the dough. Take a wide plate and put maida in it. 

Add little salt to add taste and little ghee to get smooth pliability of dough. Keep on adding water little by little till you get soft and pliable dough. Make small balls out of the dough. Keep them aside.

It’s time now to make the stuffing. To the rawa add powdered sugar, pista, almond and cashew powder, coconut powder and kismis. Mix them all well.

Roll out small puris out of the dough with the help of rolling pin. 

Once you roll the puri, put it on mould. Fill the stuffing to it and close the mould. Press it on the sides. Open it and you will get nice semi-circled ghugra.

Incase you don’t have a mould you can do it with your hands also. As you roll the puri, stuff the mixture and close it into a semi circle shape. Then keep on twisting the edges of the ghugra so that when you fry them, stuffing does not pop out.

As I made enough ghugra’s, Mom prepared for frying. 

Take a frying pan, pour ghee to it and heat it. Fry ghugra in the pan putting 4-5 of them at a time. Cook till both the sides turn golden brown. Take it out on an absorbent paper.

Transfer it to a container. And here the yummy Gujarati Diwali delicacy is ready...