Channa Magaj

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An Indian sweet, made with chickpea flour and copious amounts of butter ghee

After much research, it still is not clear to me as to where the name Channa Magaj comes from, nor the orgin. Whilst I have only known it as an Indian sweet, there are proclamations that there are many versions of this around the world with different names.

Channa magaj is an Indian fudge-like sweet, made by gently roasting graham flour (which is where the name comes from) with, some might argue, a disproportionate amount of butter ghee. These are usually made around special occasions, and I believe in balance, so getting to indulge in these around an auspicious time is perfectly okay in my books.

This channa magaj recipe – has one important instruction for getting the perfect two tone and toasty texture – a low and slow toast. Made with gramflour as the base, the nubbly, crunchy bits in this recipe do not come from the addition of any nuts but rather from frying the gramflour in ghee for at least 20 minutes. The end result is a two-tone caramelized toastiness, with wonderful texture.

This mixture then cools, completely, before kneading in your dry ingredients and bringing everything together to form a smooth fudge-like mixture. I usually just cut them into squares, with a sprinkling of toasted almonds, but here I have opted for placing them into silicon moulds, freezing them and then popping them out. However you choose to serve this, I promise you that you will have people coming back for more – it is utterly moreish, after all.

The recipe below makes half a batch, because I never know what to do with the leftovers – however, it is as easily doubled and the results turn out great 🙂

If you make this recipe, please share it with me by tagging me on Instagram @adventureswithsugar or on Facebook at Adventures with Sugar or leaving a comment below. Baking and sharing these delights are really a labour of love, and so when any of you make and share this with me, it really means more than you know.

FOR THE CHANNA MAGAJ

250g gramflour (half a packet)
55g butter ghee (quarter of a cup)
60ml milk (quarter of a cup)
190g butter ghee ( three quarters of a cup, plus two tablespoons), for frying
125g milk powder / KLIM (quarter of a packet)
120g icing sugar (1 cup)
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground, cardamom powder

METHOD

Place the gramflour, butter ghee and milk in a large bowl. Massage all these together to form a slightly crumbly mix – not quite as fine as breadcrumbs. Do not worry if there are a few large clumps, as you want this for texture. Do not crumble the mix too finely. Let this rest for about an hour.
Heat the 190g of butter ghee in a large pot, on the stove until melted and hot. Reduce the temperature to a low medium heat and add in the graham flour mixture. Let the graham flour slowly roast in the ghee. Initially everything will seem fairly smooth, but as it cooks little clumps will begin to form, almost a bit grain-like. This is what you want. It is very important to stir at very regular intervals to prevent the mixture from scorching and to facilitate the clumping of some of the graham flour.
When the mixture turns a light brown, caramel colour, you know it is done. This will take 15 -30 minutes depending on the heat of your stove. At this point, there will still be a lot of ghee on the surface, but that is fine. You are not looking for the ghee to be totally absorbed into the graham flour mixture.
It is very important to let this mixture cool completely, before adding in the remaining ingredients.
Once the ghee and gramflour is completely cool, add in the klim, icing sugat and ground cardamom and knead until it all comes together.
You will have a soft, but mouldable mixture which you can then place into a tin, and slice into pieces put into moulds, scoop with an ice cream scoop and spinkle on nuts or use in any other way you desire.
If the channa magaj is still too soft, then you can pop into the fridge for about thirty minutes to firm up a bit.