Sharkarpara

This is yet another one of my Deepavali favourites. We used to get this sweet from our Punjabi friends for Deepavali. This is also my mum's favorite. I made some using the recipe below and gave some to her and she thought the paras were store-bought.

Ingredients:

500g all purpose flour
100g shortening (I used 50g unsalted butter and 50g vegetable shortenening)
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

enough water to make a medium firm dough.

For the syrup:

300g sugar
100g water

Method:

1.   Sift flour, baking powder and salt together.
2.   Rub shortening into the flour.
3.    Add in water a little at a time until you have a firm smooth dough.
4.   Wrap dough in cling wrap and let is rest for about 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
5.   Roll dough out to 1/2 inch thickness and cut  paras into 1 cm squares.
6.   Heat oil drop in paras into medium low flame and fry until the paras are light brown.
7.   Drain on paper towels and let it cool to room temperature.
8.   Once the paras are at room temperature, prepare the syrup for the sugar coating.
9.   Heat sugar and water in a wok and keep stirring the syrup until it it reaches soft ball stage.
      Syrup dropped into a bowl of cold wateer should be able to hold it shape and form a soft
      ball.
10. At this stage drop in the paras into the sugar syrup and stir quickly until all the paras are
       well coated with syrup. Turn off the fire and transfer the paras to a tray to cool.
11. Break the paras up and store in an air tight container.

Note:
Need to fry the paras in medium to low heat so that the paras get cooked inside.

Coconut Candy

Since Deepavali is almost just around the corner, I am planning to put all my favourite Deepavali recipes on my site. One of them is the coconut candy recipe. I have been using teh following recipe from Aunty Yochana for the past couple of years and it is definitely a no-fail coconut candy recipe. One of my husband's favourites but my kids dont seem to like it much. I have just copied and pasted Aunty Yochana's recipe here since I just followed her recipe and did not make any tweaks of my own to this recipe. I will replace her photos with mine once I make the candies for Deepavali. Thanks Aunty Yochana for sharing this recipe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients
350 gm. grated white coconut
500 gm. coarse sugar
170 gm. evaporated milk
50 gm. Butter
1 tsp. vanilla essence
a few drops of pink food colouring or any colour of your choice

Directions

 

1.  Place all the ingrediens (except butter)together into a heavy saucepan and stir continously

     over heat until sugar dissolves.
2.  Add in butter and continue stirring until mixture thickens.
3.  Pour thickend mixture into a greased 9" square tray and press till the surface is even. Leave

     to set and cool.4.  When slightly cool, cut into squares. When completely cooled to room temperature, store in

     airtight containers.

*note: Do not wait until completely cooled then cut into squares, the candy will break into pieces.