After a great vacation back home and indulging in mom’s home cooking, I am all charged up and ready to get back to my routine. I’m still a little jet lagged but this festive gala October month takes away all the tiredness. October is the season of beautiful fall colors, the chilly breeze reminding you of the start of winter season, Indian festivals, hot cups of tea and cider, candies and sweets and not to forget the pumpkin treats. This is my favorite month of the year. October 23rd was the Hindu festival called Diwali – ‘The festival of Lights’ signifying the victory of lights over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, and good over evil. No festival is complete without sweets. Since October is all about pumpkins, I decided to make a dish combining pumpkin with coconut. Pumpkin coconut petit four is quick and real easy to make and tastes somewhat Turkish too.
- Pumpkin/butternut squash 750 gm
- Ghee (clarified butter)- 2 Tbsp
- Desiccated coconut – 200 gm
- Crushed almonds – ¼ cup
- Sugar – 130 gm
- Water – 75 ml
- Powdered cinnamon – ¼ tsp
- Green cardamom crushed – ½ tsp
- Kewra essence/Rose water – ½ tsp
- Few strand of saffron
- Peel and grate the pumpkin
- Heat ghee in pan and add grated pumpkin. Cook for 5 minutes.
- Add cardamom, cinnamon and saffron and then add water and cook till tender.
- Add sugar and cook until all the liquid dries up.
- Put crushed almonds just before the liquid from sugar starts to dry up and cook 1-2 minutes.
- Lower the heat and add coconut and cook until it pulls from the sides of the pan. Make sure you keep stirring the coconut because it will cook and dry up fast.
- Transfer into a greased 8 inch x 8 inch dish or 8 inch round dish and mark and decorate the top when warm. Let it set and cool down in the refrigerator for an hour before cutting the pieces.
- Any bright yellow/orange fleshy gourd type pumpkin can be used. I used little pumpkin and little butternut squash.
- You can mark into square shapes or diamond shapes or any other shape you like. Decorate the top with saffron strands or crushed almonds.
- This can be kept in air tight container in refrigerator for several days. Enjoy it cold or little warm with your tea or coffee or just as an after dinner light dessert.
1 Comment
Delicious and awesome recipe .