“Rosogolla” – The single most popular way Bengalis in India are identified by the rest of the country. To decode the strange word for people not familar with it, it’s a kind of sweet. I refrain from calling it a Bengali sweet exclusively since Orissa has a very *dominant* claim to it as well (although we got the GI tag). Let’s not get into that argument and focus on the keywords – “Bengali” and “sweet”.
Bengalis are born with a sweet tooth and sweets are an inseparable part of the Bengali culture. Period.
It’s rather unfortunate that Rosogolla steals the attention, because if you choose to explore the world of Bengali sweets you will soon realize how vast it is – each sweet with its own sweet history. One of the two broad collocial divisions include – ‘sandesh’ a.k.a the dry sweets and ‘rosh-r mishti’ a.k.a the wet/syrupy sweets. There is also a mischievous little devil – the Jolbhora, that combines both the categories. I’m deviating…anyway, everyone has their own preferences and rightly so, because sweet shops are abundant and innovation is not stagnant.
Naturally, being a Bengali in U.S.A where the sweet ailes in Indian stores are taken up by Gulab Jamuns and Kaju Katlis, you look for avenues to make your own sweets without having to put in a lot of effort. That is when I chanced upon Arpita’s Blog and subsequently this little recipe she had developed to attend to the nostalgia in Bengalis settled outside their state. I made a few modifications to her recipe to suit my taste but you’re open to try both!
Note: The instructions may seem to consists of unusually long sentences if you’re one of those who just skim articles to find the actual recipe (I am one of those too). But have a little patience, and I promise to humour you! In case you’re still not convinced, the words in bold should be an easy way out.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup corn flour
- 1 stick of butter (1/2 cup) + 2 tbsp
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar + 2 tbsp
- Liquid Jaggery (strongly recommended: Nolen Gur)
INSTRUCTIONS:
Step 1
For a recipe that essentially consists of 2 steps, it is usual to use fillers. Since I love “food fundas” a.k.a interesting facts about the world of food, let me give you some insights about the world of jaggery. For people in the U.S.A (or for that matter, western part of the world), jaggery is an alien word. Molasses, on the other hand, is more heard of. So, what’s the difference?
Well, for one thing, they are not comparable. But the following are.
Sugar vs molasses: Molasses come from the juice extracted from crushed sugar cane or sugar beets. As they boil down the juice to form sugar crystals, the thick, brown syrup left over after removal of the crystals is our molasses. The process is repeated several times, and for each stage, we get a different color leading to a different variety of molasses. To sum it up, molasses are still sugar but are *slightly* healthier as they have more vitamins and minerals. But if you’re looking for sugar substitutes for better health, this isn’t your answer.
White sugar vs Brown sugar: Simply put, brown sugar is white sugar with the molasses left on it that gives it the distinctive color. Both undergo the same kind of processing initially where the molasses are separated from the sugar crystals. The white sugar are purified further while refined brown sugar gets the molasses added back to it. The light vs dark brown sugar differ in their molasses content – higher the quantity of molasses, deeper the color. Unrefined brown sugar, on the other, escapes all these processings, making it the healthiest of the three.
So with unrefined brown sugar winning the battle for now, the question boils down to :
Raw sugar (turbinado sugar) vs Jaggery: Jaggery may be obtained from different sources, but for a fair comparison we consider sugarcane jaggery here. It is prepared by reducing the water from sugar cane juice by boiling continually on the high flame. Thus, jaggery is a natural sweetener, much like honey. It is free from chemicals, more nutritious and less calorigenic, making it another viable substitute for refined sugar. It also has other health benefits, which is reason enough for you to give this recipe a try.
Jaggery is widely popular in different parts of India, and depending on the availability of crops, the source differs. West Bengal (where I hail from) has its own sweet versions of jaggery from date palm that fill up the early morning air in winter as you move a little away from the city. Infact, if you have the time and interest, I love how Indrajit Lahiri of Mohamushkil has these little snippets of history/information about every food Bengali. This piece talks about this “chalice” of Bengal in more details than I can do justice to.
TL;DR: Jaggery is healthy enough for you to try this recipe.
Phew! That was a long read (but hopefully knowledgeable).
Coming back to the Bengali chick’s find in the local Indian grocery store – Jaggery powder! How I wish it were Nolen Gur (Bengali date palm jaggery) but alas, it’s a rare thing to put your hands on in this part of the world. So even though I used sugarcane jaggery, I TOTALLY, COMPLETELY encourage you to use Nolen Gur if it’s available near you. Depending on what you have access it, you may or may not skip the first step. If you get the jaggery in liquid form, great. Move onto Step 2. If you don’t, add in water just enough to dissolve the (grated) jaggery powder and then boil it till it achieves a thicker, more viscous consistency. The picture below is for a rough estimation
Step 2
I have been trying to eat healthy (and making these cookies – the irony!), so I used a powdered sugar substitute called Erythritol to replace the sugar in the original recipe. But if you have no such restrictions, go ahead with your preferred type of sugar, albeit in powdered form. Alternatively, you can add in a bit of the jaggery powder (I did!) to further enhance the jaggery component in the cookies. Creaming the sugar with the butter introduces air pockets that help the cookies to rise, so your first job is to do that. Before you move on, check Step 4.
Step 3
I finally get to say it again: SIFT your dry ingredients for an uniform distirbution and to prevent big lumps of flour. Once done, fold it in with the light and airy mixture.
Step 4
Notice how in the ingredients I mentioned some added tablespoons of butter and sugar? That was optional. The recipe from Arpita’s blog led me to a dough-like consistency that broke when I tried to flatten out the cookies. So I added in a little more butter and sugar (mainly butter) to make it a little stickier – like cookie dough. Keep in mind that will cause your cookies to expand more while they bake. It’s easier to do this in the very beginning than doing it later.
Step 5
Once you have a consistency you’re making with, make little round balls. This invariably reminds me of the way my grandmom would make Narkel Narus, another traditional Bengali sweet made with Nolen Gur. But let that nostalgia be reserved for another day. Then flatten out the balls by pressing with your thumb lightly in the centre. Make sure you have enough depth to hold in the liquid jaggery. It won’t cause much trouble except get the liquid overflowing and making your cookies look a little uglier.
Step 6
Step 7
The following steps are modified because I’m adventurous and like to me true to my category name – Baking Disasters. Just kidding. I wanted my liquid to not drool down and also in part to trickle into the cookies.
In general, due to the “Bengali Sandesh” nature of the cookies, it tends to be a little dry. To make them wetter, I suggest filling up the holes while they are still soft. The ideal time for that will be when you take the cookies out. If your cookies have expanded and they aren’t deep enough, here’s your chance to get your fingers burnt as you press in further.
Fill up the thumbprint cookies upto 3/4th depth preferably, and put them back in the oven for 2-3 mins. You might catch the liquid jaggery boiling a bit which means it’s thickening up further to be more set.
Step 8
A little misleading by the name, these cookies taste better as biscuits – a bit toughened up. As you leave them out in the open longer, the air evaporates achieving that.
And finaaalllyyyyy, after the long wait, when you bite into that sweet goodness, you’ll be left wishing you baked a few more.