Author Notes
The Harvest festival of Sankranti (and also the advent of the sun's trip to the northern hemisphere) is celebrated in different ways all over the Indian Sub continent. In the western state of Maharashtra, one of the primary offerings is little nuggets of sesame brittle, that are exchanged between neighbors with the gentle verse 'Til gul ghya aani goad goad bola' - Please take this piece of sesame brittle and may you always have only sweet things to say ,
Having said that, sesame brittle seems to be quite temperamental whenever I try to make it, the jaggery (unrefined sugar with molasses) either does not heat up enough or worse, goes past the hard crack stage into burnt caramel, and both these are not optimal. I settled on making my own version and came up with an alternate technique, with ingredients familiar to the general food loving population. and yes, everything about this screams sesame! —Panfusine
Ingredients
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1 cup Organic Tahini paste
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1/3 cup
toasted hulled sesame seeds
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1/2 cup
coconut palm sugar or powdered Jaggery
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1 teaspoon cardamom powder
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1 - 2 tablespoons water
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24 small baking cups placed in a mini muffin tin for setting the 'guls'
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1 pinch
sea salt
Directions
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Mise en place - Have the baking cups ready and set right next to you, time, tide and molten hot sesame mix don't wait for anyone!
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Add the water to the powdered jaggery/coconut sugar in a non stick skillet and heat until the sugar dissolves, lower the heat and test to see if the syrup reaches just beyond the soft crack stage (If a blob of the molten sugar is dropped into water, it should immediately form a hard sphere). At this point, stir in the cardamom and the Tahini and fold until the ingredients are completely combined.
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Using a small cookie scoop pour a teaspoon of the mix into the baking cups. Tap the bottom of the muffin tin to smooth the surface. Sprinkle liberally with the toasted sesame seeds and press lightly to ensure that the seeds get embedded on the surface. You need to work fast at this step, the fudge tends to set rather quickly.
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Place in the refrigerator to chill for about 10 minutes. This completely sets the fudge into a firm yet yielding confection to happily share with your near and dear ones.
A biomedical engineer/ neuroscientist by training, currently a mommy blogger on a quest for all things food - Indian Palate, Global perspective!
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