Sweet Somas/ Karchikai/ Kajjikayalu/ Karanji is a scrumptious and famous sweet in Maharashtra. In TamilNadu we call this as Somas/Somasi. In Andra it is Kajjikayalu and in Karnataka it is Karchikai. In Maharashtra Somas is made as neivedhyam for Vinayaka Chaturti Festival. I make this often as it is very simple and a crispy sweet.
| Preparation Time | 45 mins |
| Cooking Time | 40 mins |
| Yeild | 15 |
| Recipe Category | Dessert |
| Recipe Cuisine | South Indian |
 |
| Sweet Somas/ Karchikai |
Ingredients For Outer Cover:
| Maida/All Purpose flour | 1 Cup |
| Rawa | 2 tablespoon |
| Salt | a pinch |
| Oil/Ghee | 1.5 Tablespoon |
| Oil | For Frying |
Ingredients for Filling:
| Roasted Gram Dal | 1/2 Cup |
| Sugar | 3/4 Cup |
| Grated Coconut | 1/2 Cup |
| Cardamom Powder | 1/2 teaspoon |
 |
| Sweet Somas/ Karchikai |
Method:
- Take the maida, rawa, oil and salt in a bowl
- Add water little by little and knead the flours to a nice soft dough. The dough should not be sticky but should be tough. Keep the dough aside for atleast 45 minutes. Meanwhile we prepare the filling and keep that ready
- Take the roasted gram dal in a mixer
- Grind the roasted gram dal to a coarse powder. Coarse powder will have more taste than the nice powder. Take the coarse roasted gram dal powder in a bowl
- Add sugar and cardamom to the mixer and grind it to a nice powder.
- Take a pan, add grated coconut and fry it till it gives us a nice aroma. We don't need to fry till it becomes red color. A Light brown color with a good aroma is enough
- Now mix coconut, coarse roasted gram dal powder and sugar powder and keep it ready. Now we are ready with the filling
- After 45 minutes, again knead the dough and make small balls out of it
- Take one small ball of dough and knead it to a small poori using a rolling pin.
- Using a flat plate or a round lid, we can press the poori and remove the excess dough and make a correct circular shaped poori
- Take 3 teaspoon of water and add 1/2 teaspoon of maida and make it as a paste. Wet your finger with the maida-water paste and gently apply it on the edges of the poori. This is to paste the poori to a semi circled shape after filling the poori. Now take 1 teaspoon of filling and place it in the middle of poori
- Carefully close poori to make it a semi-circle and press the edges to stick it properly.
- Take a fork and gently make impression in the edges
- Repeat the process to finish the rest of dough
- Now heat oil in a pan, when the oil is hot enough, reduce the flame to medium flame. Gently drop 4-5 somas and fry it nicely on one side. Gently turn them to fry them evenly on the other side. Repeat the same to fry all the somas.
- The crispy and delicious Sweet Somas/Karchikai/Kajjikayalu/Karanji is ready to serve. We can sprinkle some icing sugar(powdered sugar) on top of somas before serving which will gives a yummy taste for the outer cover too...
 |
| Sweet Somas/ Karchikai |
Notes:
- The rawa added for the outer cover is to get a crispy outer. If you want a soft outer cover you can avoid adding rawa.
- Instead of rawa we can also use corn flour
- We can also grind cashew/pistachio to a coarse powder and mix it with the fillings. This gives a rich taste while to bite the inner portion of somas
- Always keep the flame in medium to fry. High flame would make the somas turn dark red and also we would get more bubbles in the outer cover
- We can also use plain water instead of water-maida paste to cover the poori with the filling. Maida paste is used to make the the poori to close stiffly so the fillings will not come out while it is being fried in the oil
- We can also use somas mould available in shops to get the impressions