Diwali Recipes- Indian Simmer (2024)

Mother-in-law was visiting around this time last year on Diwali. So there was a lot of cooking going on. From Khasta kachoris and flaky mathri to rich and seductive gulab jamuns and pipping hot gujiyas which practically melted in your mouth, we were cooking non-stop. Butterfly ran through the house stealthily grabbing some for herself and a few for her dolly friends who were apparently “very very hungry for some gujiyas” at the time. My 7 month pregnant self was fatigued, tired and bothered by the fact that Abhishek had not put up the diwali lights yet. He had been promising me for several days now that it will be done right away and it was almost diwali night. No sign of lights still! And those rangoli colors. Somehow they manage to find a safe place in the storage to hide every year, right before diwali.

Hurriedly going throughevery possible box with the butterfly, looking for the boxes of red, green and yellow I suddenly realized- it felt like diwali! The same aromafilling up the air in the house. A weird yet unforgettable mixture of the smell of crumbly gujiyas frying in the kitchen, hugging the sweet smell of jasmine scented agarbatti (incense sticks) escaping mumma’s room. The same sense of urgency to get things in order before it’s time for the whole family to sit together in our finest attire and joining hands for pooja andthanking god for all he has blessed us with. It felt like Diwali! Even more so with the parents being here.

That’s what festivals are for right? About celebrating what we are blessed with. Not about lights, or rangoli or gujiyas maybe. Although those rangoli making with your little one and frying gujiyas with your mum-in-law makes memories. Good ones! So they need to be done too. Although I will not be able to do that with mum-in-law this year as we are a long distance apart but gujiyas still need to be fried. So while missing family here in a land which we cannot call foreign anymore for it’s what’s home now, it still feels foreign on festivals. Hopefully these gujiyas will help.

Wish you and yours a Very Happy and Prosperous Diwali!

Print Recipe

Gujiya Recipe

A deep fried dumpling made with a crispy and flaky pastry covering with some kind of sweet filling inside.

CourseDessert

CuisineIndian

KeywordDiwali, Indian, Sweets

Ingredients

For the filling:

Mawa- 1 cupsolidified reduced milk available at any Indian store
Powdered Sugar- 1/4 cup
Almonds-1 tablespooncoarsely chopped
Golden Raisins- 1 tablespoon
Cashews- 1 tablespooncoarsely chopped
Ghee- 2 teaspoon
Cardamom powder- 1/2 teaspoon

For the pastry:

All purpose flour- 2 cups
Ghee- 2-3 tablespoonswarm and melted
Cold Waterapprox. 1/2 to 3/4
Oil for deep frying

Instructions

Preparing the filling:

Crumble the mawa/khoya or grate it.
Heat ghee in a pan on medium low heat. Add mawa/khoya. Cook the mixture until the crumbles soften and come together, stir continuously for 3-5 minutes.
Turn off the heat. Add sugar, nuts and cardamom. Mix it all together and let it cool completely.
Kneading the pastry dough:
In a large mixing bowl mix together flour and ghee together. Rubbing between your palms slowly mix the two until it looks crumbly and holds itself when held tight in the fist.
Now slowly add water and knead it into a soft dough. Follow the instructions in this video.
Cover with damp cloth. Let it rest for 15-20 minutes.

Bringing it all together:

Divide the dough into equal sized balls, golf ball size.
Dust the work station and roll the dough into circular disks, approx. 4 inches in diameter. (Try using as little flour as possible for dusting as extra dusting flour on the pastry will separate in the oil when fried.)
Place the rolled dough either on the gujiya mould or lying flat on the work station, add 1 1/2 tablespoon of filling on one half side of the circle.Lightly moisten the edges with a paste of water and flour mixture, fold the other half over the stuffing and press the edges to seal. Pinch the edges either with a fork or a gujiya cutter.
Repeat with the rest of the filling. Cover the prepared gujiyas with damp cloth while working on the rest before frying.
Heat oil in a pan or wok. Deep fry untill the pastry is golden. Either serve piping hot or cool it down before storing in an airtight container.