Desserts
Channa Magaj
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 origin. 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 gram 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 caramelised 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 silicone 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 🙂
The recipe
Channa Magaj
adventureswithsugar.com/channa-magaj/
Method
Method: channa magaj
- Hydrate the gramflour: 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.
- Roast the gramflour mixture in ghee: 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 gramflour mixture. Let the gramflour 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 gramflour.
- Finish roasting the mixture: When the mixture turns a light brown, caramel colour and begins to smell nutty, 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 gramflour mixture.
- Let cool: It is very important to let this mixture cool completely, before adding in the remaining ingredients. The ghee will solidify a bit and it is what gives your channa magaj that soft decadent texture.
- Knead in the dry ingredients: Once the ghee and gramflour are completely cool, add in the Klim, icing sugar and ground cardamom and knead until it all comes together.
- Serve as desired: 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 sprinkle on nuts, or use in any other way you desire.
- If it's too soft: If the channa magaj is still too soft, then you can pop it into the fridge for about thirty minutes to firm up a bit.
What should I know about making this recipe?
I usually use the questions that people have on the recipe to update this section, but I honestly have not had many in the past. In my view, this recipe is relatively straightforward, where the only real skill required is patience.
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