This Kaja sweet is the simplest one with which I could start my series of Diwali sweets this year. These are cute, little sweet things which doesn’t seem to be heavily loaded with sugar. And I am easily inclined to less-sugar sweets, which is why madatha kaja sweet is the first one this year. I loved the thin sugar coated flaky layers that were crisp even after couple of days. Last year when I happened to go to a food festival of Karnataka here in UAE, I got the chance to eat madatha kaja in a “Karnataka special” food stall. Obviously it caught my attention. The crispy layers of Kaja were gorgeously attractive. Looked like they are wrapped in the glossy sugar coating. When I tasted it, the taste was more or less like badusha. So before giving hands on Badusha recipe I tried this madatha kaja sweet and it’s worth trying.
I would like to share few quick tips for the perfect Kaja sweet.
- It’s the ghee that you add to flour initially gives the flaky texture. So get the maida in to crumbled form by adding ghee initially. You can even warm up ghee.
- Stiff and smooth textured dough always lets you roll very thin. Which can turn crisp after deep frying. So keep an eye on water that you pour to knead dough.
- Let the sugar syrup attain single syrup consistency or less. No worries. The consistency doesn’t ruin the taste, texture and shape of the sweet.
- Almond and pistachio toppings make the sweet look good in the eyes of camera, so I have added. Otherwise they aren’t necessary.
Kaja Sweet | Madatha Kaja Recipe
Ingredients
- All purpose flour(Maida) - 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp for dusting
- Ghee- 1 tsp + 1 tsp
- Water- 1/8 cup or as needed
- Cooking oil- Enough to deep fry
- Pistachioed and alomonds- enough to garnish
For sugar syrup
- Sugar- 1/2 cup
- Water- 1/8 cup
- Cardamom powder- 1/4 tsp
- Lemon juice- 1 tsp
Instructions
Method
- In a cooking vessel add sugar and water, cook it in medium flame. Sugar dissolves slowly.
- When the sugar syrup consistency is of single thread, switch off the flame. Add cardamom powder and include lemon juice.
- Take maida in a bowl and add ghee to it. Using your fingers mix it well so that the flour gets crumbled form.
- Next, add water little by little incrementally and knead a stiff dough.
- Cover the dough with damp cloth for 20 minutes and then divide in to two equal parts. Dusting enough flour roll each one as thin chapati.
- Next on the surface of rolled dough spread ghee all over using a brush or back of the spoon.
- Sprinkle some dry flour all over. Now cover this up with the other rolled dough as shown below.
- Next fold the chapati tightly like a log. And cut this log in to pices of approximately 1 cm thickness.
- Take each piece and press it slightly and give it a shape. Ensure the layers are intact.
- Next heat a wok with enough cooking oil, when it gets heated up, deep fry the ready kajas batch-wise. Keep the flame medium and fry till they turn brown.
- Next immerse these fried kajas in sugar syrup for about 5 to 10 minutes. Let them absorb syrup and then remove from the syrup and store.
- Flaky and crispy Kaja sweet is ready to serve.
Notes
- The sugar syrup will not be consumed completely. So you can use the remaining syrup for other sweet.
- To check sugar syrup consistency, take a drop of syrup between your index finger and thumb, if it forms a single thread then it's done.
- The maida dough should be stiff without any cracks, so use water accordingly.
- Roll the maida dough as thin as possible to get crispy kaja sweet.
- You can even roll 3 to 4 chapatis, place one over the other and fold like log to get more layers in the sweet.
- Do not fry in high flame because the layers may remain uncooked. Keep the flame low medium and cook the sweet slowly for even cooking.
