No more home-made sweets

Having grown up in a traditional north Indian family where mothers start making sweets days before the beginning of the festival of lights, I decided to be the torchbearer of the great Indian tradition this Diwali. I want our baby boy to be aware of his cultural heritage, I told the husband. He's only 10 months old but that's besides the point. Full of excitement, I eagerly trawled the internet for a recipe easy enough for an aspiring sweet-maker.

Ah! This looks easy, besan ke ladoo — round balls of chickpea flour roasted in ghee and mixed with crushed almonds, cashews and a teaspoon of cardamom powder. It was a Sanjeev Kapoor recipe so possibly can't go wrong, I figured. Even better, I had all the ingredients at home except besan which I picked up from a local grocery.

When my son was taking a nap, I strode expeditiously towards the kitchen, my head filled with visions of friends applauding my gourmet talent.

I faced a challenge at the starting line itself; I didn't have a big enough saucepan. But improvise, that's my middle name. I took one cup ghee and four cups of flour and divided them into two rough halves. But to my horror, the flour just coalesced into large clumps instead of forming into a smooth paste. Pah, that Sanjeev Kapoor, I thought, didn't give the right measure for ghee. I poured in some more ghee, relying on my superb approximating skills. Immediately, the batter looked better. I stirred it for about 20 minutes.

"Can you smell it, yet?" I hollered at the husband. Apparently, when the flour is done, it lets out an aroma that fills the house. "Umm, yeah," he said, "sort of." So I took it off the fire, mixed in the crushed nuts and powdered sugar and left it to cool. After 20 minutes, when I attempted to make round balls, the dough just wouldn't hold.

The husband, who was going to have the privilege of being the first one to sample my masterpiece, looked slightly uneasy. Looking at my face, he knew something was amiss. "You know your problem," he said, "you always begin by trying to impress me and that's why you go wrong." Hmm, if husband thinks he's the centre of my universe, so be it.

Not much improvement

But what to do with this darn thing, I wondered aloud. Hand me the semolina, I instructed. "Aren't you going to roast it," he asks?

Nah, it's fine. I threw in a generous amount. Not much improvement. Maybe it's the besan, I mused, it wasn't branded so maybe there was some other flour mixed in it. OK, I know, get me some more crushed cashews and almonds. I was sure this would do the trick but it was not to be. The batter didn't get any better.

To my relief, the husband said it tasted delicious, so what if it's not round. "Looks don't matter," he managed to declare with a straight face before breaking into rapturous laughter.

I was mortified, how am I going to offer it to my friends? Take it to work, he suggested. You can offer it to your non-Indian colleagues. Just say it's halwa (which does not have a shape).

Anyway, amidst all this, I suddenly realised that my son's nap was longer than usual. "Perhaps he's sleeping because he's worried that you might make him eat it," said the husband. If looks could kill, he would be a dead man.

Anyway, I have decided traditions are all very well but there's nothing wrong with store-bought sweets. After all, those guys have families to support as well. If we all start making sweets at home, they'll be out of jobs. So, no more home-made sweets, at least not made in my home.