Pantua 

May Maa Durga empower you and your family with her nine swaroopa of Name, Fame, Health, Wealth, Happiness, Humanity, Education, Bhakti & Shakti. Happy Navratras. And have a blessed Durga Puja.

Durga Puja is starting from tomorrow. A auspicious occasion of Bengal.

Sharadotsav or Durga puja is an annual Hindu festival in Bengal that celebrates worship of the Hindu goddess Durga. It refers to all the six days observed as Shashthi, Maha Saptami, Maha Ashtami, Maha Nabami and Vijayadashami.

We prepare different types of sweets for this occasion. 

Sharing one more sweet for this festive season.

Pantua.  A delicious melt in mouth dessert. In North India gulab jamun is very famous and its looks like gulab jamun right?  But its not gulab jamun. Gulab jamun is made of khoya or milk solid and pantua is made of paneer or cottage cheese.

You can find this sweet in different names and shapes in Bengal.

Pantua can be made round or oval shaped both. There are two more varieties of this dessert. You can call them close cousins of pantua. They are ledikeni and langcha.

Langcha is cylindrical shaped sugar syrup dipped sweet made of the same ingredients of pantua. But darker in colour. In West Bengal Shaktigarh is famous for its langcha. Whenever we travel from Kolkata to Patna by road my brother always stop at Shaktigarh to enjoy this yummy sweet. And we also pack some of these delicious stuff. Here is a picture I have taken in a sweet shop at Shaktigarh.

Ledikeni is also made with same ingredients. Here is an old story about this sweet.

Bhim Chandra Nag a confectioner of Kolkata renamed his pantua ‘ledikeni’. At that time he prepared this specially on the occasion of the birthday of Lady Canning, wife of Governor-General Charles Canning. And she loved these sweets and asked for more. Thus pantua is also called ledikeni 😀

Sending this post to 110th #Foodiemondaybloghop Durga Puja theme. 

Pantua is easily available in Bengal and Odisha but not in North India. This melt in mouth delicious dessert is very easy to make. Make it at home and make your festival special.

 Recipe 

Paneer or cottage cheese – 1 cup

Khoya or dried milk – 1/2 cup

Refined flour or maida – 3 tablespoon

Suji or semolina – 1 tablespoon

Soda – a pinch

Ghee or clarified butter – 1 tablespoon

Sugar – 1 cup + 1 tablespoon

Water – 2 cup

Cardamom powder – 1 teaspoon

Saffron – a pinch

Raisins – as require 

Oil for frying 

Method 

Knead paneer or cottage cheese, khoya/mawa or dried milk, refined flour or maida, soda, sugar and ghee for 10 – 15 minutes.

You have to knead it well to get a smooth and soft dough.

I have blend the cottage cheese and dried milk in mixer grinder to make it smooth.

Then kneaded with sugar, ghee, soda and refined flour for 7 – 8 minutes.

Make small equal size balls out of the dough. I have made 16 balls. Flatten the ball with your palm. Place a raisin in the middle and close the edges. Make a smooth ball again. Make the balls carefully ensuring no cracks on the balls. 

Mix sugar and water in a large pan. Let it boil.

Add cardamom powder and saffron.

When sugar dissolved simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and keep aside. 

Heat sufficient oil in a pan. Simmer the heat.

Fry the balls on low heat. Be patience. Don’t increase the flame.

Fry all the balls evenly. Place on a paper towel.

Soak the fried balls in sugar syrup for 1 hour.

Or heat over high flame just to one boil. Remove from heat.

Serve immediately. Or let it cool down at room temperature and keep in refrigerator for later use.

You can serve it chilled but I like it hot. Just heat or microwave for few seconds before serving.

Enjoy the soft delicious melt in mouth pantua.

I would love to hear from you. Please share your thoughts and suggestions in comment. 

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