MysorePak

There are two types of mysore pak the soft one and the crispy one. The soft one is called as Neti Mysorepak(Ghee MysorePak) and is almost like a halwa that melts in your mouth.This recipe is for an airy,crunchy mysorepak. We need to be a little quick while making this recipe.This south Indian preparation is made of lots of ghee (clarified butter), sugar and gram flour.

Preparation time:30 minutes

Serves:Makes about 24 flat pieces or 12 regular sized pieces

 Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups ghee

1/4 cup vegetable oil(optional ,you can also use ghee in place)
1 1/2 cup ChickPea flour/Gram flour/Besan
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water

Procedure:

1.Grease a baking sheet with ghee.

2.Take the Besan in a bowl, heat the oil in a different pan until it starts to smoke and immediately pour the hot oil on the flour and mix well to form crumbles.

3.Sieve the mixture to remove any lumps.

4.Keep heating the remaining ghee in a separate pan. The ghee has to be really hot.

5.Take sugar and water in a wide pan and start heating, mix until the sugar dissolves and let form a single thread consistency or 235F(110C).

6.Now add the besan into the sugar slowly and mix until all flour is incorporated without lumps.

7.Now add the ghee that has been heating one ladle at a time and continue mixing until all ghee is added. Continue mixing until the mixture starts to leave the pan and the mixture is bubbly immediately transfer it to a baking sheet or a plate and level to form pieces.

8.After 5 minutes cut squares and let cool completely.

Tips:

The right sugar consistency is important, if you have a food thermometer you can use that to get to the right temperature otherwise when you take a droplet between your thumb and index fingers and pull your fingers apart it should form 1 thread. Cooking sugar more than this will form a really hard Mysore pak.

Cut the Mysorepak to pieces while its warm or it will break once cooled.

I used a flatter sheet pan to make small pieces, if you like the larger pieces like available in the store use a smaller and deeper pan.

Do not overcook in step 7,the mixture shouldn't get burnt anywhere,if its tuning color you have to immediately remove it from stove and transfer to pan.

When you switch off the stove in step 7,the mixture has to be transferred immediately to a greased pan or it will set in your cooking pan itself, do not worry about scraping the dish because by the time you do that your mixture would have hardened.