Like every year, Diwali brings a great amount of enthusiasm, festivities, and liveliness. And comes along great food. It has become a tradition for me to cook some homemade sweets every year for Diwali. Making your own sweets at home is a lot more than having some delicious homemade food. It’s about the whole experience of sourcing the ingredients, meticulously following each and every step and lovingly creating every single piece of sweet. And last not the least sharing it with your family and friends. And that is why the whole experience makes me push my boundaries every year on this great festival of lights. This year too, I had been planning on to make sweets, but I wasn’t sure whether I’ll get enough time owing to the busy schedule at work. But then it was a just in time email from Kankana for an invite to join a virtual potluck for Diwali theme with other fellow bloggers from different parts of the world. And I knew what am I going to make this time. Balushahi is one of my favorite Indian sweet, which is basically a golden fried flaky and light pastry dipped in saffron and cardamom sugar syrup. It gets it flakiness from the lightly mixing the dough, without it needing any kind of kneading it all. And that makes it a bit easier to make. Though it is a little time consuming because pastries are fried slowly on a very low flame so that they get cooked from the inside and outside gets an even golden brown crust. The fragrant sugar syrup is what makes it complete. One bite and it takes you to the dessert heaven. Trust me, it’s just not easy to have just one. So if you are still thinking about making some sweets at home and are not sure of what to make, try these. I am sure, you’ll love it just like I do. Happy Diwali and happy cooking!
Here’s what other made this delicious food for the potluck.
Ilish Pulao by Deepasri Deb
Mysore Pak by Radhika Penagonda
Ras Malai by Kankana Saxena
Paal Kozhukattai with Coconut Milk by Vijitha Shyam
Lilva Kachori by Binjal Pandya
Malai Laddu by Prerna Singh
Mini Gulab Jamun by Rumela Roy
Mutton Pantheras by Maumita Paulghosh
Prawn Pulao by Chandrima Sarkar
Karachi Halwa by Soma Sengupta
- 350 gm plain flour
- 1/3 cup curd
- 1/3 cup ghee
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/3 cup water
- Oil for frying
- 450 gm sugar
- 1 1/2 cup water
- a good pinch of saffron
- 6-8 green cardamom, lightly pounded
- finely chopped unsalted pistachios
- a couple of silver leaves
- In a large bowl, add flour and baking soda and mix well to combine. Add curd and ghee. Rub the flour gently using your fingers, until it resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add water and mix gently again using your fingers, until the dough comes together, ensuring that you don't knead the dough at all. It just needs to be mixed. Bring it together to make a dough ball and let rest for 30 minutes.
- In the meantime, make sugar syrup by heating sugar sugar and water until it starts to boil and sugar dissolves. Add in the saffron and cardamom pods. Simmer the syrup without stirring it, until it reaches one thread consistency. It will roughly take about 8-10 minutes to reach up to this stage. Keep it warm at a very low flame.
- Take the dough. Flatten it out on a work surface. Cut the dough into two halves, place one half over another and press firmly. Again flatten the dough and cut into two halves and repeat this process for about 6 times. By the end of this, you'll see layers of dough.
- Heat the oil in a wok very gently on low heat. It should be very gently heated, otherwise the dough ball will get browned too quickly and the inside will remain raw. Divide the dough into four equal parts. Taking one part at a time, roll into a log and cut about 8 equal balls. Roll gently into balls. Using your thumb, indent each dough ball in the center. Fry the dough balls gently on each side, until it becomes golden brown on each side. Each batch will take approximately 15 to 20 minutes of frying. Take the fried dough balls out of oil and let sit for a couple of minutes. Dip them into warm sugar syrup for about 2 minutes. Take them out of sugar syrup and let stand on a wire rack. Apply a little of silver leaf on each balushahi and scatter with chopped pistachios. Store them cooled in an airtight container for a week.
That looks fabulous 🙂 I so wish this was not a virtual potluck 🙂 Happy Diwali!
You styled those balushahi so beautifully. I never tried making this dessert at home. To be honest, I get little intimated with the idea. Thanks a lot for sharing it at the virtual potluck and making it sound quite doable. Will let you know when I try 🙂