If someone asks me what are my fondest memories with mom, I’d remember standing beside her and helping her out to make this delicious indian sweet “Mysore Pak”.  I always heard people thinking this is the hardest recipe to fix at home but trust me, a little patience is what you need to make this dish. I happened to have a couple of disasters in my kitchen before I learnt to make it the right way. So do not give up, if you fail to do so the first time. If your mysore pak is yellow on top and the middle layer looks light golden brown in color it means you have successfully made this dish. Many a times I ended up my mysore pak looking yellow in color all the way inside and out but finally got to do it after many attempts in the kitchen and I’m happy to share the recipe with my dear readers now. Pardon me for not adding detailed pictures. With both my hands occupied in making the dish and hubby dear not around, I ended up taking the final outcome of this dessert. But I promise to update the post with a few more pics asap.

 

Ingredients: (makes about 12-14 pieces)

1 cup besan (senagapindi)

5 tbsps of peanut oil (to mix in besan)

1 cup melted ghee (I melted the ghee first and then  measured to 1 cup)

½ cup peanut oil

1 cup sugar

¾ cup water


Others:

Sieve

Wide heavy bottomed vessel to cook the mixture

Wooden spoon for stirring

Slotted spoon to pour in the ghee & oil mixture while cooking.

Edged tray to pour in the mixture (I used a 9″ cake pan greased with ghee and set aside)

Small cup of water to test the sugar syrup consistency

PROCEDURE:

  • Heat 5 tbsps of peanut oil to smoking point and pour this in besan. As soon as you pour the oil in, it makes a sizzling sound. Mix the besan gently (be careful, the oil is hot. Use a wide spoon to mix, if required) so that the oil coats well and the mixture resembles crumbs. Sieve this mixture and set aside. This process helps to avoid lumps while mixing with sugar syrup.
  • Heat 1 cup of melted ghee and ½ cup of peanut oil together to smoking point, reduce the flame to low and leave it. We will be using this later after adding besan to the sugar syrup. So ideally you will have two burners, the left one with hot melted ghee on low setting and the right one for cooking sugar syrup and besan mixture.
  • In a wide heavy bottomed vessel, add sugar and ¾ cup of water. Cook on medium heat till the syrup reaches one string consistency. This took about 5-8 mts for me. A good sign that indicates the syrup is reaching the desired consistency is, you see bubbles/froth appearing as the sugar gets dissolved. (also see “tips” at the bottom of the post)
  • Now reduce the flame to the lowest setting and slowly add in the sieved besan flour to the sugar syrup while mixing with your right hand. Take the help of your friend if you cannot do both simultaneously.
  • When the besan is well mixed with the sugar syrup and no lumps are seen,using a slotted spoon start pouring in the heated oil and ghee mixture with your left hand while stirring the besan and sugar syrup mixture with your right hand. The ghee & oil should be poured at intervals. An easy way to do this is, as you pour in the first spoon of ghee and oil in the besan mixture it makes a sizzling noise, showing holes in the mixture and absorbs all the ghee. Then pour in the next spoon of ghee & oil and follow the same steps. By the time you are finished adding all the ghee & oil, the besan starts leaving sides of the vessel and showing a frothy mixture with lots of holes.
  • At this point immediately remove the mixture and pour it in the prepared greased tray. Do not press or adjust the top layer to form a smooth surface. Leave it to cool for about 10 minutes, cut into desired shapes, allow it to cool completely after making cuts and serve.

Tips:

A few things that you should keep in mind while making this recipe:

  • Make sure all the ingredients used are fresh and no cut backs on the quantity of ghee & oil mentioned in the recipe.
  • Make sure you grease the tray with ghee and set it aside, ready to pour in the cooked mixture into it. You do not want to do this in the last minute because the mixture gets burnt in a blink of eye if you turn away even for a minute.
  • Never attempt to make this dish on a high flame.
  • One String means when you stretch the syrup between the thumb and index finger it forms a thin string. Alternatively you can put a drop of the syrup in a small cup of water. If the syrup does’nt dissolve in water, reaches to the bottom and forms a ball it means the syrup is ready.
  • At any point of time do not stop stirring the mixture when you start adding the ghee & oil to besan - sugar syrup mixture.

Tags: besan, ghee, Indian Sweets, mysorepak