Mysore Pak

Mysore Pak is a well known delicious South Indian Sweet. Once you have a small bite, it will melt on its own in your mouth with minimal effort. The ingredients are besan, sugar and ghee. The ingredient list may seem simple, but making this sweet is like an art, needs your devotion and focus. If you miss the timing, it will become rock hard. Let's see how to make it.

Ingredients:

Besan (Kadala Maavu) : 1 tumbler
Sugar : 2.5 tumbler
Pure fresh Ghee (Desi Ghee) : 2-3 tumbler (melted and warm)

(Note: 1 tumbler =~ 200ml apprx)

 Method:

1. Sieve the besan once to avoid lumps.
2. Take a thick bottom kadhai/pan, pour 1/4 tumbler water into it, add sugar to it and keep stirring till sugar melts.
3. Add 1 tbsp of milk. It will boil and settle on the top along with the impurities (brownish white). Remove it gently with a ladle or spoon.
4. Now let the sugar syrup boil (keep stirring often) till we get 1-string-consistency. (How to check - Wet your index finger and thumb finger with water , take little amount of the sugar syrup with a spoon, touch it with your index & thumb finger. Now if you slowly tap your index finger with the thumb finger, you should be able to see one string formed in between.)
5. Now add the besan slowly and keep stirring simultaneously. Mix well and make sure no lumps are formed. The flour should blend well with the sugar syrup. In sometime it will start boiling.
6. Now add one ladle of melted ghee, you will see that boiling will stop and again within minutes it will boil again. Repeat this step till you have used 3/4th of the ghee quantity.
7.You will see that the mixture will thicken, tighten and start becoming non-sticky and will not stick to the pan. Add the remaining melted ghee, keep stirring fast continuously. Please have your full focus on it.
8.The mixture will boil with bubbles making it look like whitish light cream colour. This is the texture or colour you need to wait for and once seen, immediately pour the mixture into an aluminium tray (or stainless steel tray) greased with ghee all over.
9. Make it even with the help of the ladle or spoon. Since its very hot, best is to move the tray up and down sideways and it will settle down evenly. But please do not tap the tray in an attempt to evenly spread the mixture.
10. After 10 min, the mixture will be still hot. Cut it  into cubes and then allow the mixture to cool for around half an hour.
11. Remove the cubes from the sides first which will make it easy to remove all. Store in air tight container.

Note : In Step 8, if you remove the mixture from the flame before achieving the right texture, it will be sticky and the sweet will not be good. But if you remove it late, it will harden and again the sweet will not be good.