Mysore pak is one of the famous sweets of South India often made during deepavali/diwali as well as for marriages. But you can eat on ordinary day also. It is a rich and elegantly tasty sweet which when made right melts in your mouth. This was one my favorite sweet while growing up. I love to see them in sweet stores (sweet stall as we call in my home town) along with savories like muruku, mixture etc. But my mother was not fond of making it in home. She will say “you can get in store, why do you want spend energy and time trying to make it, if it does not comes out good, you are going to throw it in the trash”. One of my aunts (father’s sister) used to make it in home. I was afraid to make till last year. My hubby also likes Mysore pak very much. He usually gives courage and tells me to try it. He will say “ if you are not trying, how will you know whether it comes good or bad.” So try and find out yourself. After looking at several recipes on the web, I decided to venture in to it. I also happened to see the You Tube video of Vahchef. I kept his video as outline and made some changes according to here and ended with my take on this dish.
Besan/Chick pea flour: 1 cup
Sugar : 2 cup
Ghee/Clarified butter: 1 cup and 2 tbsp for greasing the pan
Canola oil : 1 cup
Water : 1 cup
Cardamom crushed : 2-3 no/ ½ teaspoon
How I made:
Heat a thick bottom pan and add Ghee/Clarified butter and Canola oil and keep it in low flame in one stove.
In another stove heat pan or kadai add besan /chick pea flour and 2 tbsp of Ghee +oil mixture and roast it for 2-3 minutes or until the raw smell goes away and flour begins to change the color and starts to have an aroma. Switch off the flame and cool it for 5 minutes and sift the roasted flour to remove any lumps.
Grease a 9 inch cake pan or thick plate with 2 tbsp of ghee and kept aside.
Heat thick bottomed pan and add sugar and water and let it boil with continue stirring, until it reaches 1 thread consistency or 220F. here
Once it attains one thread consistency, slowly add the chickpea flour into the bubbling sugar syrup with continuous stirring (put flour with left hand and stir the sugar mixture with right hand, if you have extra person for help you don’t need to use two hand) so that no lumps are formed.
Then add hot ghee +oil mixture (one ladle at a time) to the flour + sugar mixture with continuous stirring and cook till the entire mixture becomes frothy. When the mixture starts getting thicker and leaves the sides of pan, take and pour it into greased cake pan or thali.
Leave it for 3 minutes, and while still warm cut it into desired shapes using a buttered knife so that it won’t stick to the knife.
Once completely cooled keep it in air tight container. You can keep in room temperature for 10 days.
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Yield : 25 medium pieces
Verdict :Melt in mouth
Will I make it again: Yes I will
Things to remember: Roast the flour so that besan will not have raw taste.
Sift the flour to prevent lumps.
Keep ghee and oil mixture always hot.
Continuous stirring after sugar reaches one thread because cooking takes places once you add hot ghee.
Update:
I followed the recipe except for reducing the amount of ghee oil mixture ( 1 cup of ghee and 3/4 cup oil) and increased the amount of water by ½ cup, and adding crushed cardamom.
Swathi
