Mawa Gujiya | Fried Sweet Dumplings

Mawa Gujiya is a popular Indian sweet (fried sweet dumpling) made during festivals. As a result, I have so many memories associated with it.

The air has a comfortable nip and the sun has started to feel it too, arriving late in the mornings and hurriedly saying his byes by 5 pm; Ma has started to bring out the woolens to air them and phool gobhi and paalak have started to make an appearance in the menu. The haats and phool bazaars are getting more colourful and lush and the maali has started to pot marigolds, pansies, and phlox. My favourite time of the year is here. Diwali is just a week away and there is a buzz in the entire household.

Ma (who is a teacher) would come back from school and after a quick lunch would send us kids off to finish our homework and then sit down to make gujiya with the house help. As they would knead, roll, mould, stuff, and seal I would find excuses to take a peek – sometimes on the pretext of drinking water and on others making up questions about the homework. Ma sensing the curiosity would occasionally relent and let me be a part of it all. I would eagerly help lay the gujiyas out or break mini dough balls and hand them over to her to roll, waiting impatiently for the first batch to be ready for frying. Oh! The divinity of those hot gujiyas melting in your mouth still lingers fresh.

Recreating a Part of My Childhood

Its only natural that now, each Diwali I try and relive a part of my childhood by making a batch for my children. Although I must admit that it has taken me more than a few attempts to finally say that I can make decent gujiyas. For it takes some patience and diligence to get there but its all so worth it. So, here is the result of my multiple failed attempts – a recipe with tips and tricks from Ma and me to make the perfect Mawa Gujiya. Trust me, if you follow each step as suggested, it is going to be a cakewalk; a bit of a workout for your arms and hands for sure but apart from that a cakewalk indeed!

Let’s Start With the Filling

The easiest part of making gujiyas is making the filling itself. I have tried various kinds of fillings – semolina with coconut, just semolina, mawa with semolina, and pure mawa. In my humble opinion, the pure mawa tastes the yummiest. If you can make your own mawa, then nothing like it. That is the best tasting kind! You might have to cook it in ghee slightly to achieve a consistency which is easy to fill into the moulds. But if you are like me, with your hands full and just about squeezing time out to make gujiyas, then store-bought mawa is the next best option.

That is what I have used here. While you do not need to cook it, I do recommend placing it over a hot (not boiling) water bath when you mix in the powdered sugar and semolina in. It just helps melt the sugar and mix all the ingredients very well without making the mawa hard and brittle. Once mixed well, add chopped nuts and raisins and keep aside.

Dough for the Gujiyas

Next is the dough. The key to delicious gujiyas is the papery thin crispy exterior with soft and sugary filling. And the trick to achieving the thin crispy exterior is rubbing the dough with ghee between your palms till it starts to come together, before starting to add water and kneading it. The ghee needs to be melted and brought to room temperature. Add it little by little to the dough. Too little ghee would yield a chewy shell, while too much ghee would make it hard to roll the dough out. Approximately 3-4 teaspoons of ghee for 250 gm flour is generally good enough.

Using lukewarm water to knead the dough makes it more pliable. But be very careful while adding water, do it in small additions as it is hard to salvage the dough if too much water is added. The end result should be dough with consistency softer than poori but stiffer than roti. Once done cover it with moist muslin to avoid drying and keep it covered even while you pull out small dough balls to roll.

Making the Dumplings

Grease your rolling surface with some ghee and roll out really thin round discs making sure they are a few centimetres larger than your mould so it hangs a bit. Also, grease the mould with ghee so the discs do not stick to it and are easy to bring out. After placing the discs on to the mould, smear the edges with some water to help seal, place some filling inside and seal. Lay it on a tray lined with parchment and set aside for 20 minutes before frying. This helps to fry well and makes for crispy shells.

 

Ready to Fry

Make sure the oil is really hot by dropping a tiny dough ball into it; if it sizzles and comes up right away, oil is hot enough to fry the gujiyas. Then reduce the heat to medium-high and fry them one at a time making sure to turn them over quickly. The shells are really thin so we do not want them burning. Place the fried gujiyas on a kitchen towel to absorb excess ghee, cool, and store in an air-tight container and consume within ten days. Do not refrigerate!

 

[kkstarratings]