Mohanthaal

Mohanthaal

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by Deeksha Pathak

Mohanthaal is a traditional Rajasthani and Gujarati sweet dish prepared with (besan) gram flour and clarified butter (ghee). It is a kind of besan ki barfi but mohanthaal has very fine granules of roasted gram flour. If you love gram flour sweets then definitely you should try this recipe. When you just gulp one piece of fine granules of besan roasted in desi ghee along with cardamom flavour settled down with sugar syrup, I bet you can’t stop with one piece only!!

My love for mohanthaal goes back to my childhood. This is one consistent mithai my mother used to prepare every year for Holi and Deepawali festivals. It is a sugar syrup based sweet dish and some people find difficult to prepare the right consistency of syrup. So my mom used to be in high demand during festival time in the neighborhood to help with the last step of mohanthaal when sugar syrup is getting ready! I was amused when my mom told that this year also during Deepawali that was called by next-door house aunt saying that mohanthaal has not come well, please do something…

Don’t worry, it is not really that difficult to prepare. Actually, mohanthaal is prepared in two different ways. One method is lengthier than other. My mom follows the first method, and I, being my mother’s daughter, am also used to the slightly longer process. I will post the short method too sometime in future.

A few points to remember :

  1. While frying besan mathri, keep the heat somewhere between sim and medium as besan gets fried faster . Don’t worry much if Mathris remain slightly raw from inside. While roasting, we will take care of this.
  2. Oil can be used in the whole process, but ghee gives wonderful taste. So decide as per your preference. I have used oil only for frying mathris .
  3. Two thread sugar syrup (do taar ki chashni) is the right consistency for this sweet dish. But if you add roasted gram flour slightly early in sugar syrup and mohanthaal is not set firmly even after a few hours, don’t worry. Once again, add the gram flour in kadhai, stir it for 5-7 minutes on medium heat till the batter is thick and that will make it set nicely.
  4. Mohanthaal will be very dry and brittle if sugar syrup becomes thicker than two-thread consistency. Again, don’t panic, collect dry mohanthaal, grind it in coarse powder, heat 1/2 or 1 cup milk in a wok/ kadhai and add powdered besan. Stir the batter continuously till it becomes thick and leaves the sides of wok/kadhai and then set it.
  5. Reduce or increase sugar quantity as per your taste.
  6. Ready gram-flour batter will be very hot when we shift to the greased plate for it to settle down. Because of heat, while cooling down, mohanthaal will change its colour and become bit more dark. But this will not affect the wonderful taste!
  7. If gram flour is roasted nicely, you don’t need to keep mohanthaal in the fridge for a week.
  8. Sweets of besan are usually very delicious and pure ghee will make mohanthaal irresistible. So, be aware of calories! Do some exercise and relish this homemade traditional Indian sweet to satisfy your sweet cravings this winter.

Mohanthaal

I have a few more posts on Indian sweets in the blog. If interested, you can take a look…

Seven Cups Burfi

Rasgulla

Rasmalai

Naariyal ki burfi (coconut burfi)

Naariyal Ke Laddoo

Rabdi / Rabri

Ingredients :

For muthiya/mathri

Gram flour (besan) 250 grams
Ghee/oil 6 tbsp
Water 1/4 cup
oil for frying
35 to 40 gms muthiya 10

For roasting

Ghee/oil (melted)1/3 cup

For sugar syrup

Sugar 300 grams
Water 1 +1/2 cups
Milk 2 tbsp

Cardamom powder and some chopped dry nuts of your choice
Ghee to grease the plate

Process :

Thoroughly grease a plate having edges with desi ghee and keep it separate.

In a broad vessel, mix besan and desi ghee together. Then slowly add water and prepare tight dough.

Divide this dough in equal parts and prepare these flat rolls as shown in the picture. We call these flat rolls Mathri or Muthiya.

In a wok/kadhai heat oil or ghee and fry these mathris.

When mathris are fried break them into pieces and grind them till you get coarse powder. Sieve this powder in a slightly medium-sized-holed sieve.

roast gram flour nicely with ghee for mohanthal

Add ghee and coarsely grinded powdered besan in a wok/kadhai. Roast it on medium heat till you get a nice aroma of gram flour. Shift this roasted gram flour to a separate vessel.roasted gram flour for mohanthal

Heat water and sugar in the wok/kadhai to prepare sugar syrup .

sugar syrup for Mohanthal

Add milk the moment sugar gets dissolved completely. All the impurities of sugar will float on sides of the wok. Discard them with the help of a spatula. Let the syrup boil on high to medium heat till it reaches two-thread consistency. Add powdered cardamom in sugar syrup.

remove impurities from the mohanthal syrup

The moment syrup is ready, add roasted gram flour. Be quick here…mix it thoroughly in sugar syrup and shift this batter to the greased plate and spread it evenly. Sprinkle cardamom powder.
Let mohanthal cool down

Spread finely chopped nuts and press them slightly with the back of a spoon so that the nuts settle down.

Mohanthaal

After one hour, when mohanthaal is still little warm, cut it in desired shape and size. Let it cool and settle down completely.

Very difficult to hold our temptations, right!! Till then satisfy your craving with the scrapes of mohanthaal from wok/ kadhai😋

Mohanthaal

Because of hot batter, besan gets roasted even while cooling down and turns slightly darker in colour and this enhances the taste a lot 😋😋😋

Mohanthaal

 

Published by

Deeksha Pathak

I like reading, watching movies, listening to music, doing some art and craft, cooking, baking and exploring new ideas. Baking is my new passion!!

84 thoughts on “Mohanthaal”

      1. 😀
        We call it Chakki. My s-i-l (nanad) makes the most delicious chakki – and even keeping it somewhere else is in vain. Dabba kholte hi sab khatam!!

  7. One of the authentic Mithai that is being made in the households for ages. There are variations of this being made elsewhere in Rajasthan- Besan Ki Chakki. Either ways, it is absolutely yummy. I need to have one, now!

    1. Thanks a lot arv.
      Yes, in Rajasthan it is popular with the name of Besan ki Chakki.
      Kisi bhee vidhi se banao aur kuch bhee naam rakh lo, swaad to vahi rahta hai… 😇Desi ghee does wonder with food and sweets both 😁😀

    1. Thanks a lot Stella ☺️ 😊
      Yessss, I agree.. once it is there and weight loss planning… 😇
      If some guests are coming then prepare, they will empty the box😁

  14. First of all, thanks so much for sharing such a detailed fail-safe recipe with fantastic tips. Since I am not confident of handling sugar syrup I don’t try these traditional sweets, now this post throws some light on sugar syrup based recipes. 🙂
    I could very well imagine your kitchen filled with delicious flavors of nicely roasted gram flour, ghee & cardamom, and I just can’t wait try this recipe. 🙂

    1. Megala, many many thanks for your lovely appreciation and going through the efforts of reading the whole post❤️😘🤗
      During roasting only house starts giving wonderful aroma to neighbors also 😁😁

  16. This looks very perfectly done and so delicious .I love besan sweets any time.Your tips are always handy and well instructed ! Wonderful share Deeksha.

    1. Ha ha ha… my mom would be glad to hear this 😊 you know she keeps on talking about her old age health issues but the moment her neighbors call her for kitchen related things, she forgets all pains and gladly reaches there to help and of course some bonus of gossip 😁😀

  21. This looks delicious! I had never heard about it but now that I have I know I have to try it. The pictures make it look so tempting. But this reminds me of besan ki burfi. Does it taste similar?😀

  23. Besan barfi with gram is one of my favorites since childhood. Very addictive. My mom used to make it with dark shakkar.
    Aap itni amazing barfi kaise banaati hai. The presentation is also excellent.
    If we were living in Bengaluru, I would never have fitness 😊

    1. Many many thanks ☺️☺️Punjabi hote hue bhee aap fit hai to aap kahi bhee rahe, farak nahi padega…
      Dark shakkar tastes really good, difficult to find these days. We used to call it ‘khand shakkar’. It tastes so good mixed with curd 😋😋

  24. What I love most when I come here, Dee, are recipes of food I’ve never heard of, much less eaten. Thank you for broadening my horizons regarding food. xo

    1. Probably because a few recipes are completely traditional and nowadays when so many new types are of sweets are available easily in the market, no one bothers to do effort with homemade ones.
      Thank you very much Amy for your encouraging sweet appreciation ❤😊

      1. Sure. First 100 orders will be free, and I will appear 50 times in your first 100 orders. 😛

        Enjoy the year ! You’re fab. Bhookh lag jaati hai when I end up on your blog.

  28. This is amazing. May God, like this sweets, always maintain sweetness in the lives of you and your entire family. Happy new year ma’am.🙏🙏💐🌻🎆
    Hope that we will get to know more of your delicious dishes in this new year too.🤗😊🌷

  29. LOVELY!!! And now I’m officially hungry! Binge reading Your blog before breakfast!!! 😅 Thank You for this, Deeksa!!! It looks wonderful!!! Cheers and Huge hugs!!! 🤗💖😊

  31. yum! It looks lovely and delicious. And, you are really right. It is not that difficult to prepare. I may try to make it during lunar new year!
    And, everything with ghee is just the best from heaven!

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