Have you seen your grandparents and parents cook with coconut? Indian kitchens have long included coconut. Just as much as Indians love coconut in their meals, they also love it in their sweets and desserts. Adding coconut to a dish or dessert gives it a kind of creamy the inherent sweetness that coconut has, makes desserts even more delicious.
Coconut's adaptability makes it a popular component in desserts. While desiccated coconut works well for dry sweets, the texture of fresh coconut is quite different. Various parts of coconut such as the milk and cream are used to creat both sweet and savoury dishes across different regions in India. When cooking with coconut it is important to remember that coconut has natural sweetness, so the sugar or jaggery used in the recipe to make the dessert needs to be balanced accordingly.
Spices are a common feature in many Indian desserts and spices such as cardamom, saffron, and nutmeg work well especially for coconut-based sweets. Your coconut sweets will look better with creative platings, edible decorations, or moulds. For interesting flavour combinations appealing to a broad spectrum of palates, pair coconut with chocolate, fruits, or nuts. Here are some traditional Indian sweets that are originally made with coconut and some that don’t usually feature coconut in their recipe but can be experimented with.
One of the easiest sweets to make, these ladoos can be found in many houses especially on festive occasions. To make these you have to shape tiny balls made from desiccated coconut mixed with condensed milk or jaggery. You can add cardamom to these and add almonds or other nuts as well. The ladoos are usually bite-sized and look like snowballs. It’s hard to find people who can resist coconut ladoos.
While Barfi in it’s various forms is already very popular across Inida, adding a creative twist to the original recipe might be interesting.Cook fresh grated coconut with sugar, milk, and a bit of ghee until the liquid thickens. Arrange it on a tray, let it set, then cut it into squares or diamonds. Add rose water, saffron, or chocolate if you enjoy any of these flavours. Adding pistachio to this mix can give it a different colour and make it look good and taste better.
While the classic Indian pedaa needs no introduction, the modern interpretation of the classic peda, uses coconut and has a thicker texture. Combine desiccated coconut, sugar, cardamom, mawa—milk solids. Form small discs and decorate it with dried rose petals or edible silver leaf (vark). The speciality of pedas is that they have a melt-in-your-mouth texture and a mild flavour, adding coconut keeps these qualities intact while adding a new flavour.
Kheer is made with different ingredients in different regions of India. It is a creamy rice pudding and adding coconut to it is an absolutely delicious idea. It’s a dessert that will seem familiar but will be completely new at the same time. To make coconut kheer cook rice with coconut milk rather than ordinary milk. Sweeten the mix with jaggery or sugar and sprinkle a little cardamom on top. Add almonds and toasted coconut flakes to the kheer. If you are bold enough to experiment add tropical fruits such as mango or pineapple to the mix. You can also skip the traditional way of serving kheer to serve them in shot glasses.
Cocnut halwa has always known to be a dish cooked during religious festivals and pujas. Cook fresh coconut thickened into a halwa-like consistency using ghee, sugar, and milk. For taste, add cardamom. Saffron and pistachios are optional ingredients that you can consider adding to your coconut halwa. If you want a slightly caramelised flavour and a darker colour, substitute jaggery for sugar.
Modak is a traditional Maharastrian sweet that is typically cooked for Ganesh Chaturthi and believed to be lord Ganesha’s favourite food. Modaks aren’t difficult to make but mastering the art needs some practice. To make the chocolate and coconut version, make a filling with cocoa powder, sugar, and grated coconut. Shape this doughs into the shape unique to modaks and surround the filling with steaming rice flour dough.
This canbe an interesting variation to the classic Maharashtrian flatbread. While the dessert is typically made with a filling of lentils and jaggery, adding coconut can give it a different taste. Create a filling with cardamom, jaggery, and grated coconut. Stuff it into whole wheat dough, roll into flatbreads, and grill with ghee. If you want to present the dessert in a more contemporary style, you can cut into little wedges and present it with a dollop of fresh cream.
Gujarat’s Shrikhand is loved all over India. Add thick yoghurt to coconut milk, sugar, and cardamom. Chill it and serve with toasted almonds and grated coconut. You can also add lime zest or pineapple to this dessert and present it as a modern party dessert as a dip for sweet biscuits or in little cups.