Ingredients:
• Almonds – 1 cup (level)
• Sugar – 1/2 cup
• Yellow food colour – a little
• Almond essence – a few drops
Method:
- Boil 4 cups of water in a vessel and remove it from the fire. Add the almonds and close the vessel.
- After 15 minutes, drain the water.
- Wash the almonds in cold water and then remove the outer skin.
- Wipe the skinned almonds with a paper towel or a clean cloth to remove the excess moisture.
- Dry roast them in a hot pan on a very low flame for a few minutes without discolouring it. Now, remove from fire but keep the almonds in the pan as this will make them more crispy.
- If you have a microwave oven, keep the almonds in a microwavable plate on high for 2 minutes.
- Check now and see to it that it does not get over-dried and loses the pale white colour.
- Powder nicely in a mixie after the roasted almonds get cooled. Transfer it into a large basin and add a few drops of almond essence. Mix well.
- Add a minimum amount of water and half a pinch of yellow food colour to the sugar and prepare sugar syrup to a one-string consistency.
- If the syrup gets very thick then the texture of the final product is completely lost.
- Pour the hot syrup slowly into the almond powder (not vice versa), mixing well to form a thick dough.
- Knead the mixture well while it is still warm.
- Keep the dough in between two greased (ghee) plastic papers.
- Flatten the dough with hand. Slowly remove the plastic paper on top.
- Cut into diamond shapes when it is still warm. If you want, you can decorate it with silver paper.
Recipe courtesy of Saraswathi