Cuisine: Jharkhand
Category: Dessert
Prep: 15 min
Cook: 10 min
Serves: 8
Difficulty: Easy
🌿 Vegetarian
Dried mahua flowers ground and mixed with jaggery and ghee into sweet balls — the tribal forest sweet of Jharkhand using the sacred mahua tree.
Ingredients
- 1 cup dried mahua flowers (Madhuca longifolia — strongly sweet and fragrant when dried; available at tribal markets during spring season)
- 1/2 cup jaggery — grated
- 2 tbsp ghee
- 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
- 2 tbsp desiccated coconut
- A pinch of salt
Method
- If dried mahua flowers are very dry, briefly dry-roast in a pan on low heat for 3 to 4 minutes until fragrant. Cool.
- Grind the roasted mahua flowers to a coarse powder — some visible flower texture is good, do not powder completely fine.
- Heat 2 tbsp ghee in a pan. Add mahua powder.
- Roast on low stirring continuously for 5 minutes until deeply fragrant.
- Remove from heat. Add grated jaggery, cardamom, desiccated coconut and a pinch of salt. Mix well while still warm.
- Shape into balls using 1.5 heaped tbsp per ball. Press firmly. Cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container.