Bring a sugary touch to Eid

Spread warmth and love this season with these sweets.

In keeping with the custom of serving a tray full of sweets to everyone who comes to wish Eid mubarak, let us celebrate this festival with some traditional recipes. We have already had a fair share of calories with a month of iftar parties, so let us carry on with the binging.

Every country, which celebrates this festival, has its own favourite Eid sweets but some form of sewain (vermicelli) always finds its way on the menu for guests. Given here are recipes for a selection of sweets which are popular in the Indian subcontinent.

Recipe: Sweet notes

Sujji ka halwa
Ingredients:
6 oz sujji (semolina)
1 tbs gram flour (besan)
4 oz ghee (clarified butter)
6 oz sugar
2 cups water
2 tbsp raisins
2 tbsp blanched almonds
2 cardamoms, crushed
A pinch of saffron
Vark ( or silver leaves)
Heat the ghee and fry the semolina, cardamoms, raisins and gram flour till golden. In a separate pan, boil the sugar with a little water and saffron.

Add the syrup slowly to the semolina, stirring rapidly to make sure no lumps form. Take the vessel off the heat and decorate with almonds and vark.

Sewain zarda
Ingredients:
3 tbsp ghee
8 green cardamoms, crushed
4 cloves
6 oz sewain (thin vermicelli)
12 oz sugar
1 and 1/2 cup milk
A few drops rooh kewra (essence of Pandanus flowers)
1/2 cup mawa (solidified milk)
A pinch of saffron
Blanched almonds for decoration

Heat the ghee and fry crushed cardamoms and cloves for a few minutes. Add the sewain and fry till it is golden brown. Then, remove the cloves.

Add the milk and cook till it is almost dry, stirring to ensure that it does not stick together.

Add sugar and then saffron, which should be first dissolved in one tablespoon milk.

Add the mawa and decorate with vark and almonds. Serve hot.

Note: Mawa can be bought or made at home.

Bring whole milk to a boil and reduce to a simmer and then continue to cook till the milk dries up and is reduced to a semi-solid mass.

Remember to keep stirring or it will get burnt.

Recipe: Sewain kheer
Ingredients:
1 litre whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp almonds, blanched and ground
1/4 tsp kewra
1 oz sewain
Vark

Boil the milk till it thickens. Add the sugar and sewain, stirring gently to make sure that no lumps form.
Add kewra and crushed almonds.
Cool and decorate with blanched almonds and vark.

Recipe: Cake it
Nariyal barfi
Ingredients:
1 litre milk
4 tbsp desiccated nariyal (coconut), slightly toasted but not browned, or 1/2 cup grated coconut
7 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp butter
5 cardamom (seeds only)
Vark

Boil the milk till it is slightly thick. Add sugar and continue cooking, till it is half the original quantity.

Add the coconut and stir till it reaches the softball stage. (Drop a little piece in a bowl of cold water. It should form a ball and will not lose its shape when taken out.) Add the butter and cook till the mixture stops sticking to the sides. Remove from heat and spread on a greased flat plate.

Sprinkle crushed cardamom seeds on top, leave to cool and decorate with vark. When semi-set, cut into diamond shapes.

Kalakand
Ingredients:
2 litres milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp tartaric acid
8 green cardamoms, (seeds only)
Pistachios to decorate

Heat the milk and add the tartaric acid and sugar. Small granules will appear but continue cooking till the milk thickens and the whey dries up.

Take off the heat. Cool. Grease a shallow container such as a thali, and pour in the mixture.

Sprinkle the pistachios and cardamom seeds (slightly crushed) when the kalakand is cold and cut into squares.