Magas

Magas

Chickpea Flour Fudge

Gujarati style of making Besan burfi, Magas. It is made from ghee, coarse chickpea flour, and sugar.

We also can make ladoo as well. It is just a matter of shape. Taste and texture will be the same.

Coarse chickpea flour

I use special chickpea flour only for magas. You will find it very easily in Indian grocery store.

If you are not able to find it in your area, you can use regular besan (gram flour) as well. But the texture and taste will be different.

If you using besan there is a procedure require:

Adding 1/4 cup each of ghee (clarified butter) and warm milk. Mix well rubbing the flour between both your palms. Then using a sieve rub through the sieve to get the grainy texture of the flour. An alternate option is to pulse it through the food processor to get this texture.

The Diwali festival is no fun without making Magas. I was always waiting for this festival for to eat snacks and sweets.

My mom always makes few sweets at home like this magas, biscuit, nankhatai. She makes the big batch and keeps in the fridge. As this has a good 15 days shelf life if stored in the fridge.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup Ghee

1 cup coarse chickpea flour

½ cup white granulated sugar

¼ tsp green cardamom powder

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg powder

Few strands of saffron

½ tsp Buchanania lanzan (charoli)

Few almonds sliced for garnishing

Few Pistachio sliced for garnishing

Few rose petals

Grease tray or plate in which you are going to set the Magas with little ghee.

Method:

Heat the ghee in a pan on medium-low heat. Once hot add chickpea flour and sauté it with stirring continuously till the flour becomes golden brown.

It will take about 4-5 minutes. You will get a nice aroma of the toasted flour. Ghee will starts to ooze out from the sides. Also, it gets a slightly dark brown color.

When done turn off the stove. Mix very well. Add cardamom powder, nutmeg powder, saffron and sugar. Mix it well again.

Transfer the mixture into a greased tray and spread it evenly. Garnish it with the almonds, pistachio, rose petals and charoli.

Let it cool for about 30 minutes to 1 hour.

If you making ladoo mixture is also cooled enough in 30 minutes to form ladoo. Shape into ladoo with using your palms.

At this stage you can cut the magas into squares or diamond shape. This stage is important as when the magas sets completely, it becomes difficult to cut into pieces.

Remove them very gently without breaking it. The first piece is always hard to remove.

Serve them right away or store in the container.

Many prefer to have it warm magaj with a bowl and spoon, but I like it at room temperature.

Serving suggestion:

It usually served as a sweet (1 piece per person) along with the meal.

If you have refrigerated it, then I would suggest heat it in microwave only for 3 seconds just before serving, it will taste the same as freshly made. If you like warm magaj then you can heat it for more time as well. But I prefer the room temperature one.

Notes:

Usually coarse besan flour is used for magas. However, any reason you don’t have or find you can use normal besan flour.

Do not roast the besan flour over high heat. The flour will burn and not give a good taste.

Roast the flour till it becomes brown and not yellow. If you don't roast it well, you'll get the raw taste of the flour.

Do not reduce the amount of ghee required as the magas may not set well or you will not even be able to roll it into balls.

I used only 1/2 cup sugar and it was just right for us. For a sweeter one you can add 1 cups.

Use a sharp knife to cut the set magas.