Every year for Diwali, Hetal Vasavada’s parents used to pull her out of her New Jersey elementary school to visit friends and family living nearby.
The colorful South Asian holiday is the Hindu Festival of Lights. For some, it also marks the start of a new year, and observers believe that what you do on Diwali sets the tone for the rest of year.
In that spirit, Vasavada’s family made sure to wear their best new clothes and to wake up to a clean house. And they always brought sweets, or mithai, to share during visits.
“That’s why desserts are a big part of it,” said Vasavada, author of the popular cooking blog Milk and Cardamom. “You want to start the year with something sweet, so that the rest of year is very sweet.”
Her new book, “Desi Bakes,” is full of desserts inspired by those mithai, but it is by no means a catalog of traditional Indian sweets.
Rather than Western-style baked sweets, Diwali desserts traditionally are made of fried dough, such as gulab jamun, a spherical, milk-fat doughnut soaked in a cinnamon, cardamom and rose syrup. Many others are nut-based, like kaju katli, which is like a syrup-soaked cashew fudge. Or they could be puddings, like gajar ka halwa, finely shredded carrots cooked slowly with ghee, sugar, cashews and cardamom.
Hetal’s recipes, however, mesh flavors familiar to her family with a more Western form. It reflects her background, she says, as one of “this huge generation of first-generation Indian-Americans ” — the “desis” in the book title.
“My desserts are really just an amalgamation of the stuff I wanted as a kid and what I ended up getting as a kid,” she said.
Her admittedly loose spin on gajar ka halwa, for instance, becomes cardamom-spiced carrot blondies.
She starts from a Western-style carrot cake base but shreds the vegetable finely to reflect the smoother texture of the recipe’s inspiration. Roasted cashews in the batter lend texture to the tender crumb, and a cream cheese frosting nods to American carrot cake.
The frosting teeters on the brink of making the desserts too sweet for her family.
“My mom would absolutely look at me like I’m psycho, because she’d be like, ‘Why are you putting this cream cheese frosting on here?’” Vasavada said.
She dialed back the sweetness in the batter and the frosting.
“The best compliment you can get from an Asian mom is, “It’s not too sweet.’”
From " Desi Bakes," by Hetal Vasavada
Makes one 8-inch square pan
11/2 sticks (170 g) unsalted butter
11/2 tablespoons whole milk powder
1 cup (213 g) packed light brown sugar
6 tablespoons (75 g) granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
11/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
1/3 cup (93 g) finely grated carrots
11/2 cups (180 g) all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (48 g) unsalted roasted cashews
7 tablespoons (99 g) cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup (56 g) powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Edible flower petals, for decorating
For the blondies:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray an 8-inch baking pan with cooking spray and line it with parchment so that there is an overhang. Set aside.
In a saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the butter and milk powder and melt the butter, stirring constantly until the milk solids turn brown and smell nutty. Let cool for 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, whisk the brown butter and both sugars until well combined. Mix in the eggs, vanilla, salt, cardamom and carrots until well combined. Add the flour and cashews and mix until just combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread into an even layer.
Bake until the edges are golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool completely in the pan.
For the frosting:
In a small bowl, stir together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, salt and lemon juice until smooth. Spoon the frosting into a piping bag and cut off a 1/2-inch opening.
Remove the blondies from the pan and cut into 2-inch squares. Pipe a dollop of frosting onto the center of each square and use a spoon to smoosh and smear the frosting gently. Decorate with edible flower petals.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about food, travel and wellness. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com