Milk Peda – Kesar Peda

Milk Peda or Kesar Peda is my all time favourite, be it plain or with a mild flavour of kesar or chocolate flavoured… The list goes on.. 🙂 It would be my first choice to pick from an assorted sweet box. This milk peda is an instant version with very few simple ingredients that can be made in 15 mins. Its a straight forward and simple recipe and requires no consistency checks. How cool is that? If u are looking for some easy sweet to make in the last minute, this is the perfect one..

Now to the recipe…

[Preparation Time – 5 mins : Cooking Time- 15 mins]

Ingredients:

• Milk powder – 2 cups
• Condensed Milk – 1 can (400 gms)
• Saffron – a pinch
• Warm milk – 1 tbsp
• Butter/Ghee – 3 tbsp
• Pistachios/Badam – for garnishing

Method:

• Take a tbsp of warm milk in a bowl and add saffron to it. Leave it aside. Chop the pista and badam and keep it aside. Take a non stick pan and add the condensed milk and milk powder. Mix well so that there are no lumps. Add the saffrom soaked milk and mix.

• Now switch on the flame and start heating the mixture in low flame. Add a tbsp of butter and keep stirring. It will start thickening in a few minutes. Add butter or ghee in between to prevent sticking to the bottom. U can see that it will start leaving the sides of the pan and become thick like a soft dough. This is the correct stage.

• Transfer the milk peda mixture to a plate and let it cool down a bit so that u can handle it with your hands. Grease your palm with ghee and pinch a small sized dough and make it into a smooth ball. Flatten it a bit, make a dent in the middle and add chopped pista and badam in it. Likewise continue with the rest of the dough.

Let it cool down completely, atleast for 1 hour and transfer it to an air tight container.

Milk Peda / Kesar Peda is ready.

Enjoy with your family this Diwali!!

Tips:

1. Do not overcook the milk peda mixture. Switch off the flame when it starts leaving the sides of the pan. To be sure take a small portion and try to roll in into a ball. Thats the right time.
2. If you are not able to form balls, do not panic. Heat it again for a few more mins and do the check as mentioned above.
3. The mixture will look moist when hot, but will thicken once it cools down a bit.
4. If by mistake u have over-cooked and the dough is hard, add a tbsp of warm milk and knead it.
5. U can skip the saffrons/kesar if u do not want them and make plain pedas.
6. U can add a pinch of cardamom powder to enhance flavour.
7. Cook in low flame always.
8. Keeps well for a week and the above mixture yields 25-30 milk pedas.