Sweet Somas Recipe, Karanji

          Today, it's going to be a traditional sweet recipe that we make for Diwali, Sweet Somas or Karanji/Kajjikayalu. This is one of my favorites, but I never gave it a try till now because the husband is not a big fan of it. While making it in my kitchen, all alone, my mind was flooded with so many memories. Whenever my mom made this, I would always be a part of it along with my grandmother and aunt. We would be doing such a huge quantity, that we would be spending at least 3 to 4 hours on it, and the whole time would just fly away with so many stories and gossips, missing those days. Coming to the recipe, it's not a very difficult one, the filling is very simple and can be done in minutes, and if you know to roll the dough out thinly, then you can do this sweet. Try it out with a small quantity, especially if you are doing it alone..

Need To Have
For The Outer Dough 

• Maida/All Purpose Flour - 1/2 cup
• Rava/Semolina - 1 tablespoon
• Ghee - 1/2  to 1 tablespoon
• Salt - 1/8 teaspoon

For The Filling

• Roasted Gram Dal - 1/4 cup
• Grated Coconut - 1/4 cup
• Sugar - 1/4 cup
• Cardamom - 1

Method

          Take the flour, semolina and salt, mix it, then add the ghee and mix it well. Adding water a little at a time make a stiff dough. Knead it at least for 10 minutes, cover and leave it for an hour.

          In the meantime, get the filling ready. Roast the roasted gram dal, for a couple of minutes, remove and cool, then add the grated coconut, toast till golden in color, remove and cool.

          Powder the sugar with cardamom, remove and keep, then grind the cooled roasted gram dal coarsely.

          Add the ground roasted gram dal to the powdered sugar and then finally add the roasted coconut, mix, the filling is ready now.

          After an hour, take the dough, knead it for a couple of minutes, take a small ball, roll it out as thinly as possible, then as shown in the picture, using a sharp rimmed stainless steel lunch box or cookie cutter, cut the dough into a perfect circle.

          Keep about 1 to 2 teaspoons of the filling in the center, apply water around one half of the circle, then fold it into semicircle and seal the edges properly. Then using the somas cutter ( shown in the picture ), cut out the dough a little at the edges, this gives a nice shape to the somas.

          Do the same with the rest of the dough and keep the dough and shaped somas covered all the time. Heat some oil for deep frying, add the shaped somas, 2 or 3 at a time ( depending on the size of the pan and the amount of oil used for deep frying).

          Fry it till golden on both sides, remove, drain the excess oil, cool and store in an air tight container.

Note
To get a crispy somas/karanji, make a stiff dough and roll it out as a thin as possible.
Heat the oil, add a piece of dough, if it comes up immediately, the oil is hot, reduce the heat to medium, add the somas and fry.
The somas should rise up, but should not turn brown too quickly, otherwise, the somas will be crispy only for sometime.
If kept in air tight containers, this should stay good for at least a week.
If you don't have the somas cutter, then using a fork just make some impressions on the edges.
If you can roll out thin circles perfectly ( to some extent ), then you can skip the cutting part with the lunch box or cookie cutter, just keep the filling and proceed.
The sugar was enough for us, but if you like it very sweet, then add another tablespoon.
I have made a small quantity, got 13 small somas, so rolled out everything at one stretch and deep fried, if doing a larger quantity and you're doing it alone, then do in batches, otherwise, the shaped somas will become very dry.