With Diwali around the corner, the festivities are in full swing with people buying gifts, clothes, home decor items and what not. No festival is complete without sweets so how can the biggest Indian festival be celebrated without a lot of mithai.
Ditch buying sweets from the market and add a homemade touch to your Diwali party by making mithai yourself. Many Indian desserts are served as both a religious offering and celebratory dessert. Like any festive holiday, celebrating Diwali also means having friends and family over and indulging in food, glorious food.
I personally like giving some of my much loved Indian flavors a twist, like making kalakand with tofu. This Diwali I made kalakand with tofu but with little twist.
Kalakand is a traditional Indian milk cake with a slightly grainy texture that simply melts in your mouth. This recipe for Gulabi Tofu Kalakand is super quick and easy. This is a very simple recipe and it is so close to the traditional Kalakand, the only difference is I replaced paneer with tofu. Indian desserts tend to be very sweet traditionally and I am sticking to the traditional flavor. You can reduce the sugar if you wish. This kalakand also has a specific traditional flavor of rose because of Roohafza.
Beetroot is one my favorite vegetable and I never missed any chance to add beetroot to my cooking. They are rich in nutrients that help to boost your immune system and can produce new blood cells. This time I wanted to try beetroot with kalakand and it came out very well.
Ingredients :
Crumbled tofu – 400 gms or 1 & 1/2 cups
Milk – 2 cups
Beetroot – 1 small size
Roohafza – 1/4 cup
Full fat milk powder – 1 & 1/2 cups
Sugar – 1/2 cup
Chopped pistachios & sliced almonds for garnishing
Cardamom powder – 1/2 tsp
A pinch of salt
Method :
- Boil medium size beetroot in a pressure cooker and then peel the boiled beetroot. Cut boiled beetroot into small cubes. Make a puree (1/4 cup ) without adding water.
- Line a tray with butter paper and keep it aside.
- Boil milk in a non stick pan and boiled till it for 5 minutes. Keep on stirring the milk with a spoon at short intervals so it doesn’t stick at the bottom of the pan.
- Now add crumbled tofu to the milk and stir it continuously. Cook the mixture till it gets thick and looks like mawa.
- Add milk powder and stir the mixture. Mix well and cook for 5 minutes on low heat.
- Then add sugar, beetroot puree, roohafza and cook it till the mixture reaches the consistency of making a burfee. At last add cardamom powder with a pinch of salt and mix it well.
- Pour the mixture into a greased tray and let it set.
- Garnish chopped pistachios and let it rest for 2 hours in a refrigerator before slicing.
- Now cut into desired shape.
Mad About Cooking 