Holi is round the corner, just like any Indian festival, Holi without sweets is unimaginable. So how about making homemade Suryakala or Chandrakala for this Holi? Since this is a North Indian sweet so the availability of this sweet in Chennai is a rare dream. So why not by putting little effort floor your guests and family by serving Chashni (sugar syrup) dipped Chandrakala which looks beautiful with spiral border.
Suryakala is round where as Chandrakala is half moon shaped sweet. The filling is same in both, only difference is Suryakala is sun shaped sweet and Chandrakala is half round. So serve this delightful sweet along with other Holi special dishes like Mawa Burfi, Lady Kenny, Kucho Nimki, Kalakand Sweet, Thandai, Gujiya to name a few. So see you again friends till then Happy Holi to all the readers who celebrate the festival of colours.
Ingredients:
For the filling we need :
1/2 cup Mawa (Dried Milk), room temperature
1/2 cup Khopra/ Desiccated Coconut,
1/3 cup Bhura / Powdered sugar
1/4 cup Suji / Semolina
1/2 tsp Cardamom powder
1/2 cup dry fruits like broken cashews, walnuts, raisins, pistachio and 2 tbsp Chironji
Few Kesar strands
2 tbsp Ghee
To prepare the Dough for Chandrakala we need
2 cups of Maida / All purpose flour
2 tbsp Ghee
Water to knead the dough
To decorate you need Chandi varak, rose petals and some broken pistachio
Method:
In a bowl take all purpose flour and make a well in the center. Pour ghee in the well and combine well. Start mixing with your hand and add water little by little to make a soft, non sticky pilable dough. Cover and keep aside for 30 minutes.
| Mawa is missing here as I forgot to place it in the tray. |
Take a pan and add 1 tbsp ghee, fry all the dry fruits in it till you get nice aroma. Spread it on a plate to cool down and later roughly blend it {Keep the nuts slight coarse to have good crunch in the filling}.
Fry Mawa in a heavy bottom kadai till it turns brown. Take it out and keep aside. In the same Kadai add remaining ghee and fry suji till it turns light pink (do not let it turn brown or roast more). Add desiccated coconut and stir for a minute.
Add sugar, fried mawa, coarse dry fruit, cardamom powder, kesar strands and mix all the ingredients thoroughly. Filling is ready to make Suryakala.
Divide the dough into 10 lemon sized balls, keep them covered with a Wet Muslin Cloth to avoid the dryness of dough. Take two balls and roll them into equal size pooris {diameter of the pooris should be 2-3 inches and should be rolled in a way that the corners little thick}, place stuffing on one poori, wet the edge of the poori with water or milk for binding, now place the second poori on top of it and seal the edges.
Twist the border to make spirals. Arrange them on a plate and keep them covered with a wet muslin cloth. When 3-4 Suryakalas are ready, heat ghee or oil in a frying pan and start frying the suryakala on low heat until golden color from both the sides.
In another burner prepare Sugar Syrup for suryakala, it should be of one string consistency. This will take 5-6 minutes then turn of the burner. Now a blog reader friend suggesting me sometime back that if you put few drops of lemon in the chashni then it will stop the crystallization of the sugar syrup. And now I practice it regularly !
Put the fried Suryakala in the sugar syrup and coat the syrup on both the sides. Fepeat the same till you are done with all the suryakalas. Garnish the Suryakalas with chopped pistachios and silver varak.
