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Kajukanda: Little cashew treats to bring back the child in you.

Hi to all of you af ter almost a whole year. Many of you might even have trouble remembering who I am and I cannot say I blame you. Anyway let be jog your memory a little. I am Anupama, and I blog about all the delicious things (if I may say so myself ) that I make in my little kitchen. I have been on a year long break f or various reasons that I wouldn't want to bore you guys with. But I am back. Believe me I have missed by blog just as much as you all have. I was desperate to get back into the blogsphere on so many ocassionsin this last year, but it was just other commitments that I had taken up myself that wouldn't let me. Now my intention to come back to my blog was always there, but two things that kind made my resolve to blog again even stronger were: 1. Firstly f riends started talking about my blog in the past tense. Oooooh how scary and sad that was! 2. Secondly avid readers of my blog and even a couple of new neighbours who until recently did not even know that I had a blog, kept asking me to update. It was really touching. It made me realise how much people liked what I posted. So here I am back in action. What I have today and what you see in the pic above are two kinds of treats. Chocolate Squares and Cashewnut and Rose Flavoured Squares, which are called Kajukanda in Marathi. I'll tell you more about the chocolate squares in my next post. But this one is f or Kajukanda. Many of you must have enjoyed Kajukanda as kids and some of us enjoy it even as adults. T hey are little bites of sugary delight that are hard to resist. Now Kajukanda is sold by the truckload in most f ood stores, but I of ten wonder how much of real cashews actually go into them. Seriously sometimes they taste more of peanuts than cashews. So when my mom came up with this recipe of homemade ones, I jumped.

T he f irst batch she made was a trial and it disappeared in a matter of minutes. Ever since she makes them every so of ten. As she is a Grandma to three kids (not all mine.... god f orbid :)), who constantly crave sugar in all its f orms, she has ample opportunity to make them. Believe me, once you try these homemade ones, you will never buy the store variety. T hey are easy to make, not at all time-consuming and def initely heaps tastier. So here goes Grease a 8" x 10" tray. (Dimensions of tray are approximate) Ingredients 2 cups f inely powdered plain cashewnuts (I used an ordinary teacup. You can use any other cup, but then stick to the same f or measuring the rest of the ingredients.) 1 cup sugar 3 drops of pink f ood colour 1/2 a tspn of rose essence (Available in all f ood stores) Water to make a syrup Method 1. Place the sugar in a heavy bottom pan. 2. Pour just enough water over the sugar till all the sugar is just about submerged in the water. Do this very gradually, so you don't end up with too much water in the pan. 3. Switch on the heat on low simmer. 4. Let the sugar dissolve and the syrup come to a boil on a low simmer till you have a hard ball consistency syrup. T his took me about 8 to 9 mins. But that can change depending on the amount of water you add to the sugar and also the heat settings of your hob. 5. A more assured way of checking this is to put a drop of hot syrup into a glass of water. T he drop of syrup should f orm a hard ball in the water. T his is the tricky part in the recipe. So it's best to keep the heat on low simmer throughout the recipe, so you don't overdo the syrup. 6. Once your sugar syrup has reached the right consistency, add the cashew powder and the rose essence to it. 7. Cook f urther f or approximately 3 to 4 minutes, or until you see the mixture leave the sides of the pan. All on low simmer. 8. Pour the mixture into your prepared tray. 9. Give the tray a couple of gentle bangs on your kitchen platf orm to get a smooth top surf ace. Don't touch the mixture with your f ingers. 10. T he mixture will set in a f ew minutes. 11. Cut out squares the size you want. 12. Store a tight lidded container. As there is no milk in this recipe, Kajukanda keep well f or a reasonably long time. But in warm weather they can be stored in the f ridge too.

Enjoy !! And save some f or your kids too :)) Coming up next are Chocolate Vanilla Squares