Diwali Wishes and a sweet dish- Kalakand!

Hi Friends,

At the very outset my heartiest belated wishes to you for Diwali! Hope you a had a good time and enjoyed a lot! Actually, I was planning to post this dish on the diwali day but could manage time to do so. Anyways, better late than never! I had made it specially for Diwali. I had referred the recipe from a small booklet of 'Milkmaid'. I have incorporated a few simple changes to the recipe. It tended to be a bit crumbly in the beginning but once properly set it was fine. That's why, you can see that all the pieces of the sweet are not uniform in shapes. But that does not lower the taste. Hope you would like it too..

Before going into the recipe, I would like to say something about this illuminating festival. Diwali is a festival which celebrates the victory of good over evil. As per the Hindus, it is the day when

Lord Rama returned to his kingdom, Ayodhya after 14 years of exile, after putting an end to the demon Ravana of Lanka. In Ayodhya, the people welcomed them by lighting rows of clay lamps. So, it is an occasion in honor of Rama's victory over Ravana; of truth's victory over evil. But, we Jains have a totally different occasion of celebrating this festival. It is the festival of jubilation to commemorate the Moksha attained by our 24^th Tirthankar Lord Mahavira on Amaavashya of Kartika in Pavapuri,India. According to our Holy Scriptures many Gods and Demi-Gods were present on that occasion, illuminating the darkness of Amaavashya. To symbolically keep the light of Lord Mahavira's knowledge alive, ordinary people also illuminated their homes. Hence the name of the festival - Deepawali.

Sweets and Lights are a very important part of this occassion. So, lets see how I made this Kalakand. Kalakand when normally made from milk takes a lot of time. Since I used condensed milk it was considerably quicker!

 Makes 16 peice.
 Ingredients:

1 tin milk maid.

2 cups full fat milk.

2-3 tbsp curd.

1 tsp lime juice.

2 cardamom pods crushed finely.

Few strands of saffron.

Pistachios and almond flakes to garnish.

Process:

Heat a non stick pan. Add milk and boil on a high flame. When it comes to a boil add the curd and take it off thegas for a moment. Give it a good stir. The milk will curdle. Now put it back on heat and add the condensed milk and give it a good stir. Add the lime juice  and stir. It will curdle too. Now add the crushed cardamom pods and saffron threads. At this moment if you want to add a little more sugar to your taste you can. Keep stirring and heating the curdled milk till it dries up. It will take about 25- 30 minutes.

Set it in a lined square tin and garnish it with pistachios and almonds. Let it cool down and then using it pizza cutter cut it into square size. Keep it in refrigerator.

Serve cold!
Sendin g this sweet to PJ's ongoing event- Lets Celebrate-Bengali Sweets,This event is the brain child of Nivedita And also sending it to Mina's Event CMT-Sweets started by Jagruti

Belated Diwali Wishes again! Wish you a very joyous, prosperous year ahead!