Sweets for Diwali from tobieforever on our Flickr group, all rights reserved. Got foodie photographs to share? Join our group.
Interesting piece in G2 today about Diwali - the festival of light celebrated by Hindus, Jains and Sikhs.
While it appears that there is no traditional "Diwali day" fare, what jumps out, both from the piece, and a cursory look around the internet, is the prevalence of "mithai" (sweets) during the festival.
According to some sites, many of these recipes are family specific. But they appear to conform to a sublime sticky sweetness and tend towards the colourful and decorative.
Sweets flavoured with carrot, topped with chocolate, stuffed with pistachios and studded with candied peel ... Many are different flavoured barfi, made from condensed milk and sugar, then formed into shapes depending on the ingredients: these might be cashews, saffron and, in the run-up to Diwali, less traditional flavours such as pineapple and cherry.
The basis of these sweets doesn't sound dissimilar to tablet, often made from condensed milk, butter and sugar - a combination I can imagine marrying well with cardamom seeds and other spices. There are two Diwali dessert recipes here that saffron and pistachios figure in. Anyone have any great barfi recipes they'd care to share?
