Kaju Katli

I love Love Kaju Katli. I do not know anyone who does not love kaju Katli. they are small diamonds of pure happiness and bliss....When I landed in US some years back, I found out a sweet Shop" Sukhadia" and boy was I happy.. MY sweet-tooth danced and god had mercy on me, when I had my first box of Kaju katli, here in US, just landed after marriage....Mr. Ash got these for me every now and then..more now and less of than and it did help in making me less home sick initially...(and the fat stuck to my waist like a magnet)...But that still does not stop me from stealing a piece or two from the box....

Its  a permanent fixture on my list of stuff to get from India in every trip...BUT with the costs and inflation going up, I have started feeling slightly embarrassed to ask for these from my folks, so I take help from my best friend "Google", which took me to this recipe. I do not know where I got this from as I did search intensively for a fast and easy peasy rec..and this is literally a 20 minute dish.. I even had to make the cashew powder and it did make a decent size batch.. I made this today as its Ganesh Chaturthi; ideally we make modaks; which happen to be Ganpati Bappa's Favourite sweet, but a work day morning is not an appropriate time for me to make the modaks.. so pushed the plan to the weekend. I made these today morning and then offered it as Prasad after my pooja. I prayed that God be kind on mankind and forgive our sins and not punish mother earth for our deeds. The earthquake in Japan and then Hurricane Irene have washed our souls and have left a huge impact of disaster and losses evrywhere.

Coming back to Kaju Katli and sweetness in life, Now run and make these today itself. Afterall Ganpati Bappa would also want some variety apart from his usual Modak!!!

Kaju katli’

Here's what you need

8"/10" frying pan

1 plate greased with ghee

1 flat plate or any flat surface greased.
1 wooden spatula
A sharp knife / pizza cutter
1 cup whole cashews


Grind it to fine powder. Do not add water or milk. Cashews if refrigerated(at least for a day) grinds well to form powder.

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cardamom (optional)

few strands of saffron(optional)(I didn't use this)

The Cooking Process

In the frying pan bring the water to a rolling boil. Reduce the heat to medium add the cardamom, saffron, sugar. Mix well with a wooden spatula.

When sugar dissolves add the cashew powder and mix well to avoid lumps. Keep stirring the mixture till it starts leaving the sides of the pan and begins to thicken. At this stage switch off the flame, remove the content in a greased plate and let it cool for 4-5 mins.

When this mixture turn warm enough to be handled, with grease your hand and knead it well till it forms a smooth shinny ball. Roll this ball with a rolling pin on a flat surface. Shape the edges of this rolled circle to form a square so that you don't have any shapeless pieces .

With a pizza cutter/knife form the diamonds. Let them lay there for 5 mins. Separate these diamonds a store them in an airtight container-I prefer a nice big size one and avoid stacking them one above another. Anyways, they are all gone in couple of hours.

You may use silver leaf to decorate being cutting them in diamond shapes.

Use of cardamom and saffron is purely optional. You could also add few drops of rose water or rose essence.

Note from Ash;
Few lessons I learnt was that..it will not flop even if u cook a little longer...just add one tsp ghee and roll out and make the katli's...the right time to stop cooking was when the mixture staretd collecting on the wooden spoon and making the cashew powder real fine helps a lot..



I am sending this entry to Any One Can Cook : New Weekly Event cooking with less ingredients.

Gapati Bappa Morya!!!!

Love Ash.