Soan Papdi

Today is the third day of Blogging Marathon #21. This sweet is in my to do list for long. To be frank, I tried it twice before. First time the whole lot went into a dust bin. The second time the sugar syrup's consistency was not right and I ended up with a soft sweet which my hubby's colleagues liked very much ( they don't know that it is a sweet that went the wrong way). Then I took a decision not to try out making soan papdi. But when I saw Sanjay of Vahchef making it in a video, I was tempted again. Soan papdi cannot stay away from me longer. I saw the video four or five times and then I set on preparing the sweet with 100% confidence. Every thing went according to plan until the final stage. When I poured the mixture on the counter, it started leaving ghee. Only then I realized my mistake. The recipe in his website mentioned adding 250 gm of ghee and the video recipe mentioned 1 1/2 cups of ghee. I should have added 250 gm. But I went for 1 1/2 cups and the 1/2 cup of extra ghee came out of the sweet. Apart from that soan papdi looked okay. It was crispy and little chewy. When hubby came home I gave him a piece and asked him to identify it. He ate it, thought for some time and told me that it tastes like banaras (that is what they call soan papdi at my home town). Then he told me that I was half way through in making the sweet. So if some one dares to prepare this sweet, please go through the video again and again. When you feel confident, you can try it. I think I will try it again. I am not going to accept my defeat to this sweet.


Recipe Source: Vahrevah
Ingredients:
Besan/ Chickpea Flour-1 cup
Maida/ All Purpose Flour-1 cup
Ghee-250 gm ( I used extra but I would recommend to use 250 gm)
Sugar-2 cups
Honey-2 tbs
Lemon Juice-2 tsp
Cardamom Powder-1 tsp
Almonds-10
Pistachios-10

Procedure:
1. In a non stick broad pan heat ghee.
2. Add the flours and mix well.
3. Keep on sauteing until the flour becomes golden and aromatic.
4. Add  cardamom powder, mix well and remove from flame.
5. While the flours are cooking, in a sauce pan add sugar and 3/4 cup of water.
6. Bring it to boil. Add honey and lemon juice to the syrup to avoid crystallizing.
7. The syrup should reach hard ball consistency. If you drop some drops of the syrup in water, you should be able to make it into a ball which when pressed should not crack.
8. After this stage, the syrup will start caramelizing.
9. Grease a non stick tawa with ghee.
10. Pour the syrup on the tawa and with a flat metal spoon stir it in folding motion until it become thick.
11. The four should be warm and not hot.
12. Pour the syrup into the flour mixture and with two spoons mix it gently in folding motions.
13. The flour will be absorbed by the syrup and threads will start to form.
14. When the flour and the syrup are fully mixed, pat the mixture flat inside the tawa.
15. Flip it on the counter, spread the sliced nuts on top.
16. Shape it into a square by pressing the sides with two large knifes.
17. When it starts hardening, cut into small squares and allow it to cool completely.
18. Serve..

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