Recipe- Sawan Special Homemade Ghevar

Traditional Indian sweet, ghevar is made with flour and soaked in sugar syrup. The crispy deep fried discs are soaked in sugar syrup and garnished with nuts and edible silver leaves to make a special treat!

Ghevar is a traditional Indian sweet, which is mostly popular in state of Rajasthan and also in Northern India, especially Delhi and surrounding regions. This sweet is interesting in a way that you do not get it all through the year, you only get during the month of August to celebrate festivals like Teej and Rakhi.

Ingredients

1/2 cup ghee also known as clarified butter
1/2 cup whole milk cold
1 cup ice cold water may need more
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon cardamom powder
few saffron strands
chopped nuts to garnish
yellow food color optional
ghee or oil for deep frying

Sugar Syrup

1.5 cups sugar
1 cup water

Method

Sugar Syrup

* First make the sugar syrup. To make the sugar syrup add sugar to a pan on medium heat. Now add water and mix till sugar dissolves.

* After 4-5 minutes the syrup will develop a one string consistency which means that if you put a drop of the syrup between your thumb and index finger and move the fingers apart, you will notice the syrup forming one string/thread. Set aside while you make the ghevar.

Ghevar

* To a bowl add ghee. Now add 1 tablespoon of cold milk and 1 tablespoon of ice cold water to it. We are going to add the milk, flour and water in parts and not in one go.

* Start beating it all together using your stand or hand mixer. Once it's all nice and combined, add 1/4 cup of flour and mix to combine.

* Add 1-2 tablespoons more of milk and water and combined. Add cardamom powder and mix.

* Add 1/4 cup flour again and mix. Also add in saffron strands. Now add the remaining 1/2 cup flour

* Keep adding water and milk little by little and mix till you get a completely smooth and pouring consistency batter. You may need to add more water to the batter than what is mentioned in the recipe if your batter isn't pouring consistency. You may also add yellow food color if desired.

* Now heat ghee/oil in a deep pan on high heat. I used a combination of oil and ghee.

* Once the ghee is super hot, pour batter from a height of at least 6-7 inches. Pour batter little by little in a constant flow into center of the pan The batter will sizzle up and spread immediately.

* Wait for a minute and then pour another ladle full from top in the center of the pan. Wait few seconds and then using a chopstick or any other elongated utensil, remove some batter from the center so what you get a hole in the center to lift the ghevar once it's done.

* Pour 2 more ladles of batter, repeating the same steps again. You may add more batter if you want a thicker ghevar. Once you are done with all the layers, take a stick and press ghevar slightly inside the oil so that the top gets evenly cooked.

* Once it's all nice and brow, very carefully insert the stick in the center of the ghevar and take it out of the pan.

* Place on serving plate and drizzle evenly with warm sugar syrup. You may dip the ghevar in the sugar syrup too, either way is fine. Make sure sugar syrup is warm when you dip the ghevar in it.

* Garnish ghevar with nuts, rabdi (thickened milk) and enjoy!