Mawa Bati

Although it looks much like a big gulab jamun, the Mawa Bati is stuffed with dry fruits, giving it a crunchy texture. Originating from Madhya Pradesh, the dessert is made by stuffing a mawa-based dough with nuts and mawa, turning it into balls, and deep frying them until golden brown. They’re then soaked in sugar syrup and served warm.

For the filling, one will need chopped pistachios and almonds, cardamom powder, and mawa (khoya). For the bati, one needs flour, milk powder, mawa, and arrowroot flour (paniphal). The sugar syrup requires sugar and saffron. And finally, one will need ghee for the frying.

Mawa, the core ingredient of the dish, is a dairy product made by boiling and reducing milk. The leftover is the mawa or khoya, and is of a semi-solid consistency, which is then combined with milk and sugar. There are three types of mawa, namely chikna mawa, with a smooth texture, used in gulab jamun and gajar ka halwa, danedar mawa, which is crumbly and grainy, and used in pedas and laddus, and bati mawa, which has the least moisture and is coarse, and used primarily in barfis. Besides using it as an ingredient in other dishes, it can also be rolled up into a ball and consumed as a laddu on its own.

This same mawa is also used to make the Mawa Bati, a north Indian favourite, famous for its richness and decadence.