Maalpua Recipe (Traditional Indian Festival Sweet)
Maalpua is a classic Indian festive dessert made with flour, semolina, milk, and khoya, deep-fried until golden and soaked in fragrant sugar syrup. Soft inside, crisp outside, and rich in flavor, this traditional sweet is perfect for festivals like Holi, Diwali, and Navratri.
Ingredients
- For the Batter
- 1 cup all-purpose flour (maida)
- 1 cup semolina sooji
- 1 cup khoya (mawa), crumbled
- 1 cup milk (adjust as needed)
- 1 ripe banana mashed (optional but recommended)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp fennel seeds (saunf), lightly crushed
- 1 tbsp cardamom powder
- A small pinch of baking soda
- For Sugar Syrup
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup water
- 2 3 cardamom pods (crushed)
- A few saffron strands (optional)
- 1 tbsp rose water or kewra water
- For Frying
- Ghee or oil (ghee is highly recommended for authentic flavor)
Instructions
- Collect the batter ingredients maida (all-purpose flour), Rawa (cream of wheat/semolina or fine sooji), Khoya (milk solid crushed), sugar powder, 1 overripe Banana (mashed), green cardamom powder, crushed fennel seeds in a bowl and nicely blend them. Add milk gradually and while mixing continuously so there are no lumps formed.The batter should be of smooth, thick and pourable consistency (not like thick dosa batter, but so thick that maida and sooji does not settle down). Add a pinch of baking soda and gently mix, cover and rest the batter for 20 to 30 minutes. Resting the batter is very important, it relaxes the rava and khoya, resulting in soft and moist maalpua.
- In a pan, mix sugar and water. Add cardamoms that have been-crushed and saffron strings. Keep it on medium heat and stir it constantly to allow it to become free from sugar crystals. Sugar syrup needs to be boiling and has attained either one string or string consistency. Take it off from heat and mix rose water/kewra water to it. It is essential to dip hot Maalpuas into warm sugar syrup.
- Take some ghee and put it into a heavier bottomed pan. Heat it with low or medium heat. It will take some time for the ghee to become hot. Once it is hot and smokes less, pour some batter into it using a ladle. It will take some form instantly. Let it stay and cook for some time until it becomes golden brown from below. Then flip it over to cook from the bottom as well. Do not cook Maalpua on high heat. It is slow cooking that is needed so it stays soft.Cook it on low to medium heat until the lower side gets golden brown. Turn it over and cook it till it gets evenly cooked and crunchy around the edges. It’s not recommended to cook Maalpua on high heat because it requires slow cooking in order to stay soft.
- Once the Maalpua is fried, it needs to be immediately dipped in the warm sugar syrup. It needs to be allowed to absorb the sugar syrup for 1 to 2 minutes.Remove it and put it on a serving platter. Repeat the same with the remaining batter.
