Big Batch Mithai for Independence Day from Jammu Chocolate Burfi to Modak

The following recipes will feed an approx of 25 people with a little excess unless you have people who really love their sweets and go for seconds and thirds, a little extra is always better in such cases. As for dyeing, you can use food coloring, make sure you read up on them before using them. You could also use natural dyes, for example, orange from carrots, to green from matcha and spinach. If you’re looking for Maharashtrian sweet dishes, we have the perfect one you can make this Independence Day.

Sandesh

Ingredients

• 8 liters full cream milk
• 180 ml lemon juice or vinegar
• 240 gm powdered sugar
• 1 tsp cardamom powder
• 120 gm almonds or pistachios to garnish

Instructions

1. Take a big pot with a thick bottom, pour all of the milk, and bring to a slow boil. Make sure to stir occasionally and not let it boil over.
2. Once the milk boils, turn off the heat, and add the lemon juice or vinegar. Keep mixing with a ladle or big spoon until the milk curdles. Add more of the curdling agent if needed.
3. Take a big bowl, put a muslin cloth on it, and transfer the curdled milk carefully into it. The cloth will act as a strainer and separate the whey from the chenna.
4. Rinse out the chenna with cold water to remove the vinegar or lemon flavor from it.
5. Wrap the cloth around the chenna to make a ball and gently squeeze to remove excess water. The chenna should be soft, it needs to retain a little water, so don't over-squeeze.
6. Drain the water, and hang the chenna for 30 minutes.
7. After 30 minutes, mash the chenna continuously, until it's smooth and soft, similar to dough. You need this consistency to make chenna balls.
8. Once soft, add half of the powdered sugar, and mix to combine.
9. Transfer this well-kneaded chenna to a kadhai and cook on low heat, spreading it around and mashing continuously.
10. Your cooking should be done in around five minutes, while the chenna is still moist. Over-cooking will make it crumbly and lose all of its moisture.
11. Quickly add the cardamom powder and mix well. Let it cool for five minutes.
12. Once cooled, scoop out small balls from the chenna dough, and make a depression in its center. Arrange on a thali and garnish your Sandesh with chopped almonds or pistachios.

Jammu Chocolate Burfi

As the name might suggest, that it's chocolate burfi, it actually doesn't have any chocolate in it.

Ingredients

• 210 ml ghee
• 1 ¾ kg khoya or mawa
• 1 ¾ liters milk
• 875 gm sugar
• 70 gm Almonds, chopped (for garnish)
• Edible food color (yellow and red)

Instructions

1. Heat the ghee first in a big kadhai, quickly add the khoya or mawa, and cook on low flame, until it becomes a nice brown color.
2. Once it’s nicely roasted, add the milk and let it thicken.
3. As it starts to thicken, add the sugar, and let it dissolve
4. Add the colors just one step before it is completely done and form a cohesive mixture. The food coloring will give that chocolate look.
5. Transfer to a serving thali or plate and garnish with almonds.
6. Let the Jammu chocolate burfi sit for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Modak

Modak Shell:

• 190 gm gm rice flour
• 1 ½ tsp ghee
• A little salt
• Water as needed

Modak Filling:

• 600 gm grated coconut
• 300 gm crushed jaggery
• ¾ tsp cardamom powder
• ¾ tsp nutmeg powder
• 1 tbsp ghee

Instructions

1. Make the modak filling first. Heat ghee in a pan and once it's hot, add coconut and jaggery to it. Use a big flat-topped utensil to mix well. Keep cooking until the jaggery begins to dissolve and get all gooey.
2. Stop cooking when the filling thickens, gets cohesive and still retains its juiciness.
3. Then add more ghee, cardamom powder and nutmeg powder and mix to combine. Now, switch the flame off and let the filling cool in the pan.
4. While that cools, prepare the shell. Take a big bowl, add rice flour, salt and ghee to it. Mix well until all of it is combined.
5. Put a pot of water to boil. Once done, remove from heat and use this to turn the rice flour into a dough. Add a little at a time, mixing as you go, using a spatula to avoid scalding your hands.
6. Towards the end you'll have a ball of dough. Cover the surface and set aside to rest for 5-10 minutes.
7. Once the modak dough is warm enough, use your hands to knead and form a soft dough.
8. Set aside again, covering with a plastic cling film to avoid drying up. This is optional but you can divide the dough into three equal parts, keep one aside, while dyeing the rest green and orange. Then set them aside too.
9. Assuming you don't have the modak mold, take a lemon-sized amount of the dough, flatten it slightly, and roll to thin it on all sides.
10. Add the filling in the center, pull the edges to bring them to the center, and seal it with a pinch.
11. Shape the whole thing like a modak and remove any extra dough on the top. Repeat with the rest of the colored and non-colored dough until you have a little army of modak on a thali.
12. Take a steamer and add around 2 cups of water to it. Let the water boil. Once it does, grease the steamer plate and quickly arrange all the modaks on it. Then cover with a lid.
13. Keep the steamer on low flame and let the Modaks cook for 7-8 minutes. The outer coating will turn shiny, that's how you know it's done.
14. Your modaks are ready. If you've made big modaks, the steaming time will be 2-3 minutes more. Make sure not to overcook otherwise you'll have stuff modak pellets and not sweets.