Mathura Peda Recipe

Growing up, my mom would always tell me stories about my mota foi (elder aunt) who made the MOST decadent and delicious sweets for her temple. Naturally, I was always intrigued, but never too keen on trying them because I heard they were very hard to make. Back in the day, the only thing I cooked was maggi and so you can imagine my sheer intimidation for these recipes LOL!

This quarantine, I thought it was worth a try. So I facetimed her and watched her patiently explain the recipe to my mom and I. She shared that she learned this recipe from the elders in her family and it's been passed down ever since. I was not only super excited to make these pedas, but also since this was the first time I was making it, I wanted to dedicate the pedas as a "prasadi" (offering to God) for our mandir at home.

Before I explain the recipe to you, I must warn you that this is both the easiest recipe there is for mathura pedas, but also one that requires IMMENSE patience. Just be ready to stir and listen to music while you make these delicious pedas :)

Ingredients

For Instant Mawa:

• 2 cups milk powder

• 1 cup whole milk

• 1-2 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)

Other Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp ghee

• 5-6 tbsp milk

• ½ cup powdered sugar

• ¼ tsp cardamom powder

• ¼ tsp nutmeg powder (optional)

Preparation

1. In a large nonstick pot, add 1-2 tsp ghee and 1 cup of milk. At this point DO NOT turn the stove on. It’s important to mix the milk powder first without the heat so that there are no lumps.

2. Now, add the milk powder to the pot and stir very well. Break any lumps that are created. I used a whisk for this part.

3. After you’ve mixed the milk powder and milk, turn the stove on to low-medium flame and keep stirring. The secret to these pedas is to never stop stirring and mixing.

4. Eventually after about 10-15 minutes (depending on your pot + stove), the mixture will start to separate from the pan and it will stick together slowly to form a ball or lump.

5. Add 1 tsp of ghee and break the mawa into little crumble-like pieces with your spatula.

6. After you’ve added the ghee, you’ll start to notice that the mixture is slowly reducing and crumbling. This is good, it means that your mawa is successfully breaking apart. The reason for why you want crumbs vs the lumps is because the mawa crumbles cook more evenly. Note that this will take A LOT of time before you notice the crumbles. I had to stir continuously for about an hour before I started to notice that brown crumble-like structure. Maintain your heat, do not try to increase the heat if your hands are tired or if you’re becoming impatient, this will burn your mawa before you even realize it. Do not be worried if your cook time to reach this stage is longer, this recipe requires patience and a bit of muscle ;)

7. Continue cooking on a consistent low-medium heat until you notice your crumble-like mawa becoming brown. The end goal is to have a golden brown color. If you think you’re getting to that color, chances are you might have already (don’t worry!), immediately take it off the stove and transfer mixture to a new plate so that it doesn’t continue to cook while in the original pan. The color can go from golden brown to black in a matter of minutes if you’re not careful, so be extremely attentive in this stage.

8. Let your mixture cool down before you add any sugar or milk to it. If your mixture isn’t too coarse or powder like, you can put it in a grinder and turn it into a coarse powder. But, wait for your mixture to cool before you do this.

9. Once your mixture has cooled, add ½ cup of sugar, 5-6 tbsp of milk, ¼ tsp nutmeg powder (optional), and ¼ tsp cardamom powder. Note at this part, if you’re tempted to add more ghee or milk because you think your mixture isn’t moist enough to form small balls, don’t. Wait until you’ve gotten a chance to mix well with your hands. The heat from your hands naturally heats up your mixture and the sugar, which releases a bit of moisture as well. Mixing with your hands is better than a spoon so that you can judge the consistency of the mixture and figure out if you need to add more milk or ghee (most likely not).

10. After you’re satisfied with the consistency of the mixture, roll the mawa into small ball sized pedas. If you feel that you added too much milk or ghee and it’s too “wet” to roll the balls, place your mixture in the freezer for a few minutes before you attempt to roll the pedas. This will help immensely.

11. Roll the peda into raw sugar and coat completely. This will add a beautiful and sweet tough to the peda.

Tips

• This recipe requires patience, so pop on a good movie or music and stir nonstop.

• As I mentioned earlier, the trick to this recipe is to literally never stop stirring. This will let your mixture cook very evenly. If some of the mixture is well cooked and the other is not, you’ll notice a slight bitter taste to your pedas, so to avoid this just constantly stir.

I will always cherish this recipe, if you feel you have questions or are not sure, please feel free to send me an email or a note via this site (or on my IG @thegulabitouch) and I will reply to you ASAP!

Happy Stirring!