Paruppu poli, a delicious and soft flatbread stuffed with sweet filling made from chana dal, jaggery and flavored with cardamom powder. Though poli has many varieties, this paruppu poli is the traditional one that has been made for many festive occasions all over the India. 

I love this paruppu poli more than any other varieties. And whenever i make paruppu pooranam for kozhukattai or susiyam, i reserve some to make this delicious poli on the next day ! 

Outer layer for the poli

In this recipe, i have used equal amount of maida and wheat flour for the outer dough. It gives soft yet not chewable poli. If maida is only used for the outer dough, it needs a lot of oil for soft texture instead of chewable texture.

So in order to reduce the oil and still achieve the softer texture, i have used the both flours. But it's really up to you and make it with whatever the flour you prefer. 

Cooking the poli

To cook the poli, i highly recommend to use ghee. It gives such a aromatic flavor to the poli. This is one of the recipes that taste is directly proportional to the amount of the ghee used ! More  ghee, more delicious! So be generous in drizzling the ghee :-)

Storing the poli.

Once the poli is completely cooled, you can store this in air tight container and it stays well for a 2 days at room temperature! For longer storage, put it in refrigerator. While serving, gently warm it in the hot tava ! It's as good as freshly made. 

How to make Paruppu Poli | Poli Recipe

Preparation Time : 1 hr | Cooking Time : 20 mins | Serves : 8 
Recipe Category: Sweet | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Paruppu Poli,Poli recipe,Homemade Paruppu Poli Paruppu poli, a delicious and soft flatbread stuffed with sweet filling made from chana dal, jaggery and flavored with cardamom powder.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients

Madia - 1/4 cup

Wheat flour/Aata - 1/4 cup

Turmeric powder - 1/8 tsp

Salt - a pinch

Water - as needed

Chana dal pooranam - 1/2 cup

Procedure

First let's prepare the dough, take the all purpose flour/ madia and wheat flour / aata in a bowl along with a pinch of salt and turmeric powder. Mix it all well together.

Next add the oil and mix it with the flour well, so that it's well incorporated into the flour. Then add the water little by little and make a soft pilable dough.

Apply some oil on the top and rest for two hours. In the mean time, prepare the stuffing/chana dal pooranam and keep it ready. 

After 2 hours, divide the dough into small pieces(a little small size as of the inner stuffing). Roll them into small balls. Take a dough and flatten it with hand as small circle.

Place a stuffing on it and gather the dough from the sides and cover the stuffing as shown below. Keep the sealed side down and flatten the dough with your fingers. 

Next you can use your hand to stretch the dough or like me you can use the rolling pin and roll into small circle.

Heat the tava/pan , apply a little bit of ghee and add the rolled poli and drizzle some more ghee on the sides and top of the poli & cook until it has brown spots on both sides.

That's it. Tasty and soft paruppu poli is ready.

Related : How to make Sweet Boondi

Notes:

• Adding turmeric powder gives that authentic yellow color to the poli.
• You can store this in refrigerator for upto 5 days.

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Maida Burfi | Halkova | Diwali Sweets

Maida Burfi/ Halkova, a delicious fudge made from maida/all purpose flour, ghee and sugar. Looking for a super easy & no fail burfi recipe for this diwali? Then this maida burfi is for you !! I had already shared maida burfi recipe in which sugar syrup is prepared to make the burfi. But the recipe that i'm sharing today doesn't need sugar syrup,so no need to worry about single string consistency of syrup, this recipe is so easy to make perfect burfi and works like a charm every SINGLE time. 

The maida burfi made from sugar syrup has chewy texture whereas  this maida burfi has melt in your mouth texture just like besan ladoo or moong dal ladoo. Personally I like this burfi more than the burfi made with sugar syrup because of its texture !! Ok, before moving to the recipe, let's check out the FAQs !!

What is Maida Burfi / Halkova ?

A delicious fudge made from maida/all purpose flour, ghee and sugar.

What are the other flavors I can use in this burfi?

Apart from cardamom and rose flavor, the vanilla and pistachio flavors also taste good. 

Can I reduce the amount of ghee ?

No, the burfi needs the mentioned amount of ghee for melt in your mouth texture. 

Any substitute for ghee?

Commercially, vanaspati/dalda/shortening is used in this recipe,so ghee is the best alternative already !

Any tips for beginners ?

• Make sure to let the roasted maida cool down(it's so important) completely before adding sugar. Otherwise the whole mixture would become watery and unable to set. 
• Make sure to roasted the flour well otherwise it tastes raw
• This is one of the recipes that you have to follow the measurements religiously. That's the key to get a perfect and tasty burfi.
• If you're a beginner, then I would recommend trying this burfi with a single flavor on the first try. It would be a lot easier.

 

Maida Burfi | Halkova

Preparation Time : 15 mins | Cooking Time : 10 mins | Serves : 20 
Recipe Category: Sweets | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Maida Burfi, Burfi, APF Fudge, Halkova,Diwali recipe, Maida burfi with powder sugar Maida Burfi/ Halkova, a delicious fudge made from maida/all purpose flour, ghee and sugar.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients

Maida / All purpose flour - 1 cup

Ghee - 1/2 cup

Powdered Sugar - 1/2 cup

Cardamom  powder - 1/8 tsp

Rose essence - a few drop(optional)

Pink food color - a few drop(optional)

Procedure

Add the ghee in a pan and let it melt completely, then add the maida.

Keep the flame in medium and roast the maida till it's fragrant. 

It takes around 8-10 mins. Remove from the flame and let it cool completely(this is so important).  If you're going for two flavors, then divide the dough into two equal parts.

Keep one part of the dough aside. And in the remaining dough, add 1/4 cup of sugar and the cardamom powder.

 First mix it with spatula and then use your hand to come together the dough as single mass. 

Grease the pan with ghee and add this maida dough and smooth the surface evenly with spatula.

To the other part of the dough, add the sugar, rose essence and pink food color. Mix it well together until all comes together. 

Transfer the maida dough into greased bowl and smooth the surface on the top.

Let it set aside until it's firm to touch(For faster setting, keep it in refrigerator for 30 mins). Then slice into desired size as you like.

Tasty Maida Burfi / Halkova is ready.

Related : How to make Khoya Burfi

For more sweet recipes, check out sweet collections 

Notes:

• Make sure to cool the roasted maida before proceeding further.
• Apart from cardamon and rose flavor,  other flavors like vanilla, pistachio can also be used.
• If you're using food color, take time to mix it well with the flour. 
• 

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Rumali Roti , a extremely thin flat bread made from the combination of wheat flour and maida(all purpose flour). It's quite common flat bread in Indian sub continent. Rumal means handkerchief in many north indian language, since this roti is so thin to fold like handkerchief, it got the name "Rumali Roti". 

I have seen many videos on how to make rumali roti, the chefs in the videos literally flying the dough in air to stretch it as thin a possible and cook it on outer surface of the wok because of its size. But honestly i have no idea how it will be made in north indian households. 

At home, we can't fly the dough to stretch(at least for me),right?? So had been looking for easy way to make the thinnest roti. If you're making rumali roti at home regularly, let me know your tricks in comments section, would love to hear !!!

I had this idea for a while to layer the dough when rolling and cooking the roti and later separate the layers to make the thinnest roti. Tried it couple of times , after a few flops initially, the roti turned out as thin as handkerchief and you can literally fold as you like, now it's become one of the regular roti at my home. 

Glad that i can do justice for its name "Rumali Roti "!!!. With this simple trick, you can make rumali roti without flying the dough and do all the gimmicks. Trust me, this hack works like a charm every SINGLE time and if you haven't tried making the rumali roti at home, do give a try on this method, i'm sure that you would be glad with the output. 

Now it's been more than a month since ST started working from home and for these days i have also been so active in blogging since i'm cooking 3 times a day continuously and have lot of time to shoot pictures unlike before where i usually finished off my cooking before 7.30 in the morning and hardly had any time to shoot pictures in the week day. 

Other than going for walking in the evening(if weather permits) and grocery shopping once in a week, we hardly go outside of the house in these days. All the grocery stores here take at most precautionary steps to stop the spread of virus. Every week after returned from grocery shopping, can't help but feeling overwhelmed by the hard work from all front line workers. In front of all that hard work, our lockdown inside house seems nothing and it's a privilege actually. 

Last week end, we went to bulk barn store( a store for nuts & baking stuff, usually allow individual to scoop out the needed from the large container) and all the customers were provided with personal shoppers, he/she would scoop things for us. Usually we roam around the shop and pick the things we needed, but this time i regret for not preparing the list, that would be easy for us to let them know what we needed. 

Since we're not used to ask some one to do our work in the grocery shop, it's kind of feel odd, but totally appreciate their efforts and hard work to keep the business going and help the needed. Ok, enough with my grocery shopping experience, let remind ourself that we're living the history now !! With that thought, will check out the recipe for rumali roti.  

Rumali Roti | Roomali Roti

Preparation Time : 30 mins | Cooking Time : 20 mins | Serves : 3 
Recipe Category: Roti | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Rumali Roti,Roomali Roti, Roti,Thin Rotti,Home made, How to make rumali roti Rumali Roti , a extremely thin flat bread made from the combination of wheat flour and maida. Rumal means handkerchief in many north indian language, since this roti is so thin to fold like handkerchief, it got the name "Rumali Roti". .

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Wheat flour - 1 & 1/2 cup
All purpose flour/Maida - 1/2 cup
Salt - to taste
Oil - 1 tsp + more for cooking
Water - as needed.

Procedure

Take wheat flour, all purpose flour and salt in a bowl, mix it all well together and then add water little by little and make a soft smooth dough.

Next add 1 tsp of oil and  add knead until the dough is soft and pliable. Cover the dough and let it aside for 30 mins.

Take a regular roti size(lemon size) dough and divide into two and make a smooth ball. Do the same of all the dough.

Take a tbsp of oil in a plate, flatten a dough and dip it in the oil on one side and place it on working surface and sprinkle generous amount of flour.

Take an another dough, dip it in flour and place it on the oil dipped dough and start rolling the roti as usual with rolling pin. If needed dust some flour for rolling.

Heat the tava and grease it with oil and add the rolled roti dough and cook it on both sides until golden brown spots appear on both sides.

Remove from the heat, now you can peel the layers easily just like shown in below pic.

That's it, thinnest homemade rumali roti is ready to serve. 

Related : How to make Lachha Paratha

Look how thin it is !!! 

Notes:

• Apply oil and flour generously on the dough, it helps to separate the layers of  the roti easily later.
• At first when you start rolling the stacked dough it seems like they are not stick together and keep sliding from one another, but be consistent and rolling as regular roti, it stick together in a while and will be easy to roll like regular roti
• In this method you no need to put any effort to roll it thin, roll as thick as regular chapathi/roti, the end roti would be half as thickness as the rolled roti.
• This roti can be made with wheat flour alone, but for more elasticity, little amount of maida is used.
  

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Shankarpali / Shakarpare,  a crispy and lightly sweetened deep fried snack made with a very few basic ingredients.  It's a traditional snack made for Diwali and Holi festival in North India.These cute little cubes are so easy to make for any festive season and it's extremely addictive !

Back in the days, some sweet stalls in our home town Tirunelveli had the special mixture which had a tiny size of these sweet diamond cuts along with other mixture ingredients. 

I was so fond of that without knowing the actual name(we used to call this as "kattam" means block in tamil because of its shape) and used to pick that alone from mixture and ate without touching the rest of the mixture :-). 

Still the fondness doesn't get reduced but the only difference is that now i'm making them at my kitchen instead of buying from the store. It's so easy to make at home but little time consuming because of shaping and frying them in low flame. 

Trust me, it is all worth your time, so much better than the store brought and it's super addictive!! Now let's check out on how to make these delicious sweet diamond cuts. 

Shankarpali | Shakarpare | Sweet Diamond Cuts

Preparation Time : 20 mins | Cooking Time : 20 mins | Serves : 4 to 6 
Recipe Category: Sweet | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Shankarpali,Shakarpare,Sweet Diamond Cuts,sweet Shakarpare, ghee,maida,sweet,indian sweet,holi sweet,diwali sweet hankarpali / Shakarpare,  a crispy and lightly sweetened deep fried snacks made with very few basic ingredients. It's traditionally made for diwali and holi festival in North India.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Maida/ All purpose flour -1 cup
Ghee - 2 tbsp
Sugar - 2 tbsp
Hot Water - 2 & 1/2 to 3 tbsp*
Baking soda - a pinch
Oil - for frying

* Up to 3 tbsp of water is needed for a cup of flour.

Procedure

In a bowl, add the ghee and sugar, cream it together, then add 2 tbsp of hot water and mix it well.

Let the sugar dissolve, it takes around 2 mins, then shift  the flour and baking soda into the bowl.

First mix it with spoon and then if needed add the remaining remaining 1 tbsp of water(i have used 3 tbsp of water totally), use your hand to knead a  soft pliable dough. Divide the dough into 4 equal parts.

Take a piece of dough ball and roll into thick disc and cut into small squares with sharp knife. Do the same for the remaining dough.

Heat oil for frying, add the squared dough and fry till it's golden brown. Drain them on tissue paper.

Delicious and crispy Shakarpali/Shakarpare is ready to munch. Let it cool completely and store it in airtight container. 

Related : How to make Savory Diamond Cuts

Related : More Festive Sweet Recipes 

Notes:

• Depends on the quality of the flour, you may need 2 to 3 tbsp of water.
• Keep the flame in low medium for even browning.
• For the given quantity of sugar, shakarpali has very mild sweet. If you want more sweet, you can add extra 1 tbsp of sugar.
• Keep it in airtight container for retain the crispiness.
• Make sure the water is hot for quick melting of sugar.
  

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Badusha/Balushahi, a delicious indian sweet made from the all purpose flour. It's an  Indian version of glazed doughnut(For western donuts, check out this recipe) with flaky texture inside.

Compared to other indian sweets, Badusha has a very mild sweet with rich buttery flavor, that's the main reason for me to like it so much, you can eat few badusha without overpowering the sweet taste(or simply we say "thigatamal" in tamil).  As far as I remember, we used to buy Badusha from the sweet stalls only, never tried to make it at home while growing up.

But after marriage, since we move a lot, i had started to make all kinds of sweet at home. Now here in US where i live now, it's hard to find fresh indian sweets, mostly they are old and even the taste is also not good or else you would get that "Haldigram" kind of packed sweets which i hate like anything. 

So if at all i crave for some indian sweets, there is no way other than making on my own. Sometimes I felt like unless we moved to the US,  I would never get this much interest in cooking.

Ok, now coming to the badusha recipe, i had tried this sweet quite a few times already and it turned out delicious every "SINGLE" time. The texture  and the taste of this badusha is just like how you get it in sweet stalls, the mild white sugar coating on the outside and the buttery flaky inside, literally melt in your mouth. 

I personally like badusha on the next day than the day it 's prepared. Give it a good rest time for better taste & flavor. So what are you waiting for?? Try this badusha for this deepavali and treat your friends and family. Before checking out the recipe, do give a read on FAQ if you're a beginner in making this sweet.

Why doesn't my badusha have that flaky texture inside ?

There are few things to be taken care for flaky inside 

• Make sure not to knead the dough. Over kneading develops the gluten hence the flaky texture gets lost.
• Don't reduce the amount of fat used in this recipe
• Make sure to cook on low flame for a longer time.

If you follow these steps religiously, i'm confident that you will get super flaky badusha.

Why doesn't my badusha have that white sugar coating ?

First the sugar syrup consistency is important to get that white coating on outside, so make sure to get that single string consistency. Second, let it cool down completely.

How to store and how long it stays well ?

Once it cools down completely, it can be stored in any air tight/normal container at room temperature. It stays well for a week to 10 days at room temperature. You can refrigerate them if you want to store for longer days.  

Badusha | Balushahi | Diwali Sweet

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 25 mins | Makes : 10 
Recipe Category: Sweet | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Badusha, Balushahi,How to make Badusha recipe, Easy Badusha recipe,Flaky badusha, Indian Donut,Deepavali Sweets Badusha/Balushahi, a delicious indian sweet made from the all purpose flour. It's an  Indian version of glazed doughnut with flaky texture inside.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Maida/All purpose flour - 1 cup
Butter - 3 tbsp
Oil - 1 tbsp
Baking soda - a big pinch
Salt - a pinch
Sugar - 1 tsp
Curd - 1 tsp
Oil - for frying
For sugar syrup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Water - just enough to immerse the sugar
Cardamom - 2 
Saffron - few strands
Lemon juice - 1 tsp

Procedure

Melt the butter and add into the bowl along with oil, baking soda, sugar & curd.

Whisk all together until it's slightly foamy, then add the flour and mix it well with your hand.

Then add water little by little and form a soft dough. Knead the dough for 3-4 mins or until it's smooth on the surface without any cracks. Cover it with lid and leave it aside for few mins, next for the sugar syrup, add the sugar and water in a bowl and bring into boil.

Once the sugar syrup reaches one string consistency(take a little bit of sugar syrup between thumb and fore finger and move the fingers apart slowly, it should form a single string in between your fingers), switch off the flame and squeeze the lemon juice immediately.

Next add the powdered cardamom and saffron into the sugar syrup, mix it well and leave it aside. Now take the dough and form a 10 equal sized balls.Take a ball and make a dent in the middle with your fore finger.

Do the same for all the dough. Heat the oil for frying, add the badusha dough gently.

Cook till it becomes golden brown on both sides, remove from oil, drain it in paper for few secs and them immediately put it in sugar syrup.

Coat both sides of badusha with sugar syrup well and then remove it on the plate to dry completely. 

Tasty and flaky badusha is ready. For more diwali sweets and snacks, check out my collections

Related:How to make crispy & juicy jalebi

Notes:

• Once the oil is heated, keep the flame in low for entire cooking, it helps to make sure that the inside is well cooked and have that wonderful texture inside.
• To check the oil temperature, add a pinch of dough, it should come up slowly, that's the correct temperature to fry the badusha.
• If the sugar syrup crystalizes in between, reheat it for few secs until it becomes runny and then add the badusha.
• Let the badusha soak in sugar syrup for 1-2 mins.
• Soak the badusha in sugar syrup as  batches for easy absorbing. 
  
  

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