Mithai sheds its too-sweet reputation
Younger South Asian cooks are riffing on these classics, turning them into cookies, pies and ice cream, and (gasp!) adding salt
THE brightly hued sweets at a mithai shop – Barbie-pink spheres of chum chum, silver-glazed diamonds of kaju katli and golden laddoos glistening with ghee – are the stuff of childhood dreams.
They certainly were for Pooja Bavishi, who owns Malai Ice Cream, a scoop shop in Brooklyn and Washington, DC Growing up, she would make quick work of the boxes of mithai her family would buy in Edison, New Jersey, where they shopped for Indian ingredients. Mithai was also central to Diwali, which will be celebrated Thursday this year.
But as her tastes shifted, she realised those treats could be too sweet – and they could use some salt.
“Sweet-on-sweet wasn’t something that was as appealing to me,” Bavishi said.
To some, the intense, untethered sweetness of mithai, a category of South Asian confections built on nuts, dairy and ghee (and, traditionally, no salt), is precisely the appeal. But for South Asian American cooks who grew up in a world of salted caramel and chocolate-covered pretzels, the mithai they prepare can look and taste quite different: cookies, pie or ice cream, with various ingredients to balance all of that sweetness. And yes, that includes salt.
In her new book, Malai Cookbook: Frozen Desserts With South Asian Flavors, Bavishi makes peda, a sweet of caramelised milk solids, using melted ice cream and a dash of salt. The toasty, nutty essence of the confection is the same, but it is “a little less sweet, a little more nuanced,” she said.
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Mithai was not always so saccharine. Until the colonisation of India in the 18th century, the country’s sweetener of choice was jaggery, which has a toasty, less cloying flavour, said Arun Kumar Singh, an assistant professor of political science at Multanimal Modi College in Modinagar, India. But a robust cane sugar industry emerged during the colonial era and was subsidised by the government even after India’s independence in 1947. Today, many mithai makers still rely on cane sugar, Singh said.
When Deepa Shridhar, the chef of the pop-up series Thali Omakase in Austin, Texas, makes pumpkin pie inspired by Mysore pak, a fudgy, chickpea-based sweet, she uses jaggery – and salt.
“I have convinced a lot of aunties that putting a little bit of salt in their Mysore pak is going to make it better,” she said.
Hetal Vasavada, whose latest cookbook, “Desi Bakes,” includes riffs on well-known South Asian desserts like an almond-based badam burfi bark topped with pink ruby chocolate, said she started modernising mithai not only to appeal to her evolving taste buds, but also because of the sheer difficulty of making traditional sweets.
“American and European desserts, as long as you are using a scale and following the directions, you should get something that works,” she said. But mithai is much more temperamental. If the nuts aren’t finely ground, the mithai will fall apart, she said. If the nuts are too finely ground, it will turn into a paste and won’t set properly.
Zeeshan Shah, a chef and an owner at Superkhana International, an Indian restaurant in Chicago, remembers his first attempt at making gulab jamun, in which balls of milk solids are deep-fried. “It took three of us to make it happen,” he said. “Each of us was separately so frustrated.”
Modern mithai innovations aren’t exclusive to the diaspora. In India, newer mithai shops might sell chocolate-dipped barfi or peda the flavour of Biscoff cookies. Bombay Sweet Shop in Mumbai crosses bouncy, syrup-soaked rasgulla with tiramisù.
Bavishi said she’ll always feel nostalgic for the sugary sweets of her youth, but she has neither easy access to a mithai shop nor the patience to make her favourites. Keeping up these traditions, she said, requires a little creativity.
“Kaju katli doesn’t always have to be a diamond shape in a mithai box,” she said. “It can come in an ice cream pint, and you can get the same feelings out of it.”
Recipe: Ice Cream Peda
Peda, a fudgy, milky South Asian sweet, is a staple of mithai shop cases. In this recipe, the founder of Malai Ice Cream, Pooja Bavishi, smartly uses melted ice cream as a base, incorporating milk powder, cardamom and salt for a snackable treat that’s toasty and nutty in flavour and aromatic with spices. The melted ice cream gives the peda its rich texture and subtle, sweet undertow and makes the dough easy to handle and shape. If the dough starts to dry out as you are shaping the balls, just knead it again until smooth.
Recipe from Pooja Bavishi
Adapted by Priya Krishna
Yield: 24 pieces
Total time: one hour 10 minutes, plus two hours’ chilling
Ingredients:
1 packed teaspoon saffron threads
1/4 cup boiling water
1 quart sweet-milk ice cream or vanilla ice cream
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
Salt
4 cups/420 grams whole-milk powder
Ghee, for greasing your hands
About 1/2 cup chopped pistachios or 24 blanched whole almonds, for garnishing
Preparation:
1. To bloom the saffron, crush the saffron threads with your fingers and drop them into a small heatproof bowl. Add the boiling water and let sit to develop the flavour, at least five minutes or up to 20 minutes.
2. Scoop the ice cream into a large nonstick frying pan. Place the pan over medium heat and let the ice cream melt. As the ice cream melts, add the bloomed saffron mixture, cardamom and 1/4 teaspoon salt. When the ice cream has melted, add the milk powder and, using a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon, stir until well incorporated (a few small lumps are fine). Adjust heat to medium-low and cook, stirring constantly to prevent scorching, until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan and comes together in a ball, about 15 minutes. Let the mixture cool until it can be handled.
3. Meanwhile, line a sheet pan with parchment paper. When the mixture is cool enough to handle, about 10 minutes, turn it out onto a work surface, coat your hands with ghee and knead until smooth, about five minutes (a bench scraper can be helpful to keep the mixture from sticking to the surface). To shape each sweet, coat your hands with additional ghee, then pinch off a golf-ball-size piece of the mixture and roll between your palms into a smooth ball. Flatten the ball slightly, pressing down on the centre with your thumb to create an indentation, and then place on the prepared pan. Repeat until all the mixture has been shaped, adding more ghee to your hands as needed. (If the mixture starts to dry and crack as you’re forming the pieces, knead it again until it’s smooth and glossy). You should have 24 shaped pieces.
4. Set about one teaspoon chopped pistachios or one whole almond in each indentation and press down lightly to ensure the nuts stick.
5. Refrigerate until cold, about two hours and up to a day ahead. Serve chilled. Leftovers will last up to two weeks in the refrigerator or up to a month in the freezer, stored in an air-tight container.
Recipe: Badam Burfi Bark
This modern take on badam burfi, from the latest cookbook, “Desi Bakes” (Hardie Grant, 2024), by food writer Hetal Vasavada, layers the classic South Asian almond confection over tart, Barbie-pink, ruby chocolate in bark form. The chocolate is not only a photogenic topping; it – along with freeze-dried strawberries – also tempers the sweetness of the burfi and compliments the cardamom. This recipe sidesteps the hardest parts of making burfi – it gets pressed into a pan, meaning no need to do any individual shaping – while still producing a beautiful, portable treat. A little salt brings out the best from this nutty, fruity, floral confection.
Recipe from Hetal Vasavada
Adapted by Priya Krishna
Yield: One eight-inch pan
Total time: one hour 10 minutes
Ingredients:
For the Badam Burfi:
1 tablespoon ghee, plus softened ghee for greasing
1 1/4 cups/120 grams almond flour
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
2/3 cup/133 grams sugar
1/3 cup/80 millilitres water
For the Topping:
3/4 cup/128 grams chopped ruby chocolate (see Tips)
2 tablespoons crumbled freeze-dried strawberries
Edible flowers, fresh or dried (optional)
Gold leaf (optional)
Preparation:
1. Grease an eight-inch square pan with ghee and line with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. Make the badam burfi: Sift the almond flour, cardamom and salt into a small bowl. (This helps make sure your burfi is smooth and lump-free.) Set aside.
3. In a medium nonstick saucepan, bring the sugar and water to a boil over medium heat. When the syrup comes to a boil, continue cooking, swirling the pan once or twice, until the sugar syrup reaches one-string consistency (see Tips), two to six minutes.
4. Add the almond flour mixture and one tablespoon ghee and stir over medium heat until the mixture has pulled away from the sides and puffed slightly, two to three minutes. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and press it into a thin layer using a clean spatula. If it feels too sticky, grease your spatula with ghee and continue pressing. Set the bark aside to cool until warm to the touch but not hot.
5. Meanwhile, make the topping: In a microwave-safe bowl, microwave the ruby chocolate in 15-second increments, stirring well after each until the chocolate has melted. (Alternatively, if you don’t have a microwave, bring a small pot of water to a boil and set a small heatproof bowl on top of the pot, making sure the bowl does not touch the water. Add the ruby chocolate to the bowl and stir until melted, about two minutes.)
6. Pour the chocolate over the bark and spread it into a thin layer by tilting the pan until all the chocolate spreads out over the bark. Tap the pan on the counter a few times to level the chocolate out. Top with crumbled freeze-dried strawberries and flowers, if using (let cool slightly before adding the flowers or the petals might curl). Place the pan in the freezer until the chocolate sets, 10 to 20 minutes.
7. Top with flecks of gold leaf, if desired, and cut into geometric shapes to serve. To ensure clean slices, let the bark come to room temperature before cutting it. If you cut it while it’s frozen or very cold, the chocolate might shatter. Use a large chef’s knife and cut the bark by pressing directly down with even pressure, wiping the knife between each cut. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.
TIPS:
Ruby chocolate can be found online or at your local baking store. You can find edible flowers in the herb section of your local market, or you can use dried rose petals.
To check for one-string consistency, dip a spoon into the syrup and let it cool for a few seconds. Take a tiny amount of the syrup and rub it between your thumb and pointer finger and gently pull them apart. If a single string of syrup forms without breaking when you pull your fingers apart, then the syrup is done. If you prefer to use a thermometer, the temperature should read 235 degrees.
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