Mohanthal - a Traditional Gujarati Sweet

Mohanthal is a traditional Gujarati sweet. It's tastes a bit like fudge and one of the most popular and traditional dishes served at Gujarati weddings.

Ingredients:

500 grams gram flour.

300 grams ghee
half a cup milk.
250 grams unsweetened mava or khoya (if shop bought then grate it )
350 grams sugar.
2 tablespoons, coarsely grounded cardamom seeds.
half tea spoon essence of saffron.
25 grams each of finely sliced almonds and pistachio nuts.

Method:

1. Add 50 grams of ghee to flour and mix nicely with a fork.
2. Add in the milk, mix thoroughly using a fork.

3.    Sieve this mixture through a large holed sieve. The largers grains which are sieved through help to give the mohanthal a lovely grainy texture.

4. Heat the remaining ghee and stir in the flour. Keep stirring and cooking the mixture until the flour looks golden brown.  Please take your time with cooking the mixture - rushing it will burn the flour and give the mohanthal a dark colour and bitter taste.

5. Add khoya, cardammons and nuts and cook till the mixture turns smooth and khoya turns a nice brown colour. (Once you get this colour, wait for the sugar syrup to reach its consistancy).

6. Mix 2 cups water in the sugar and heat this mixture gently until it forms a syrup. The syrup should be of one-thread consistency . To check this – take a drop of the syrup and rub it between your thumb and first finger. When you separate the thumb and finger, the syrup should be thick enough to form a thin string.

7. Add syrup to the cooked flour and mava and keep on stirring till the mixture turns thick.  Add a couple of drops of saffron essence. Keep stirring for a couple of minutes.   (In Gujarat - they tend to use more ghee and when the mohanthal cools down, you can see a layer of ghee.  My recipe uses less ghee and it doesn't make any difference to the taste)

8. Pour the mixture in a greased dish similar to a flan dish (thali) and level the surface using a flat spoon. Sprinkle more sliced nuts to decorate the mohanthal.

9. Let this cool down.   This could take several hours so cover the thali and leave it  in a cool place. Then cut the mohanthal into small  rectangle or diamond shapes and store in air-tight container.

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