Karjikai | Kajjikayalu | Karanji Recipe | Diwali Sweets

 As a kid I never used to like sweets and savories always used to win over sweets for me.There were still very few sweets like Karjikai, Rasgulla, Ariselu and few others which I used to eat with out any complaints as I used to feel them mildly sweet for my taste buds when compared to other sweets. But its quite different now and I actually started liking sweets and can eat most of the sweet varieties.

Navratri is finally over and I was successful with my nine day Navratri recipe marathon and I see many bloggers have already started posting the recipes for Diwali.This time even I wanted to post few recipes for Diwali which would be helpful to many of my readers and friends.This is my first recipe post for Diwali and you would see many more Diwali specials in my blog,so stay tuned and get ready to make a feast for this Diwali.

Karjikai or Karanji is a sweet which is usually prepared during Ganesh Chaturthi or Diwali.It is basically a thinly rolled chapati made up of maida which is stuffed with a sweet filling made up of fried gram and nuts and then shaped into a half moon using a mould and deep fried until the outer layer is crisp.As the sweetness does not over power in this one can easily gobble at least a couple of them at one go.This is my one of the favorite sweets and I hope you also like it and try for this Diwali.

Karjikai | Karanji | Kadubu | Sweet Samosa Recipe:

shelf life: up to 2 weeks & makes: roughly 15-18

Ingredients:

Oil,for deep frying

for outer covering:

1 heaped cup Maida

1/4 cup fine Rawa

a pinch of Salt

for filling:

1/2 cup Fried gram(chutney dal) powder

1/3 cup grated dry Coconut

1/2 cup + 3 tbsp powdered Sugar

1 tbsp Poppy seeds

3 tbsp Cashew nuts,finely chopped

1/4 tsp Cardamom powder

Method:

• Mix maida,rawa,salt with enough water to form a stiff dough.The dough should be like the consistency of puri dough.
• Cover it with a wet cloth and keep it aside for half an hour.
• Mean while mix all the ingredients for filling fried gram powder,grated dry coconut,powdered sugar,cardamom powder,poppy seeds and chopped cashew nuts nicely in a bowl and keep it aside.

• Now,knead the dough well again to make the dough soft and pliable.
• Meanwhile heat oil in a kadai for deep frying the karanjis. 
• Make small gooseberry sized balls with the dough and roll it out into very thin chapathis of 4"  dia.They should be very thin,so roll as thin as possible.You can sprinkle maida on the rolling board for easy rolling.
• Take the karanji mould and slightly grease the edges with little oil and place the rolled chapati on top of it.

• Place 1 tbsp of filling on one side of the partition and wet the edges slightly with water and close it and seal well.

• Remove the extra portion hanging out from the mould and keep them aside.Repeat the same process for the remaining dough.

• If you do not have karjikayi mould you can even take a sharp edged 3" steel lid and cut the chapati using it and then keep the filling inside and close it to the other side forming a half moon and take a fork and make the impressions around the corners or pinch the edges with your fingers or you can even pinch the edges and roll them inwards to form a beautiful pattern.See the image below for better understanding about how to shape them.

• Drop 2-3 at one time slowly in to the oil and fry them on reduced flame(low-medium) till crisp and golden in color.Try to pour the hot oil from the sides using the slotted spoon on top of the karanji which helps in puffing up nicely.

• Drain them using a slotted spoon to a kitchen napkin and let them cool completely.

Store them in an air tight container.They store good up to 2 weeks.

Notes:

1. The dough for the outer layer should be mixed stiff which makes the karanji crisp.
2. We generally made the outer layer dough with only chiroti rava(fine variety).You can even make it with all purpose flour or a mix of wheat flour and all purpose flour.
3. Various kind of fillings can be made like rawa-dry fruits filling,dry fruits filling,mawa filling which I would try to post sometime later.