Cheat’s Penda: a Diwali dish with a British twist

Diwali is synonymous with fireworks and candles (diwas) – it is after all the ‘festival of lights’ – but sweet morsels of sugar and spice are almost as important a part of the festivities. Just as Christmas is a time when restraint rightly crumbles in the face of mince pies and lashings of brandy butter, so Diwali is an occasion for pendas, burfis, ladoos and other sweet largesse.

Most of these sweets have in common plenty of ghee (clarified butter) and goor (unrefined jaggery), as well as lots of spice (cardamom and saffron are particularly ubiquitous) and often nuts. As delicious as it all sounds, Indian sweets often suffer from a bad reputation, in particular for being tooth-achingly sweet. Indeed they can be when bought ready-made but making them yourself allows you to play around with the quantities, reducing the sugar a bit and increasing the use of the expensive spices that bought versions sometimes skimp on but are so key to the flavour.

Penda is a particularly crowd-pleasing favourite. My maternal grandmother, Premkuverben, adapted her recipe when she came to England and discovered the availability of double cream and the magic of a microwave. It contains no ghee or ghoor but rather relies on milk powder, cream and sugar. Her resultant creation – “Cheat’s Penda” – takes less than 10 minutes to make. Grandmother’s version was made in traditional, large penda moulds: after all, consumption of calories during her upbringing in India was a sign of prestige and wealth rather than something to avoid. The recipe has since been refined by my aunt who has replaced the large moulds with, in the words of my mother, “more sensible, attractive, smaller moulds to become Susiben’s penda!” The novelty of the new ingredients available in Western supermarkets has not quite worn off: in sending me the recipe, my aunt reminded me that 'double cream is one in plastic tub next to milk in Sainsbury and Tesco'.

Once you know the basic recipe, there are all manner of possible twists. By replacing the brown sugar with regular white sugar you can create chocolate barfi: once out of the microwave, simply spread it out in a buttered pan until an inch-thick and then pour over some melted milk chocolate before cutting it into squares once set. Or, for another version, substitute half the milk powder with desiccated coconut and, as my mother tells me with increasing enthusiasm, I will have 'given birth to coconut barfi. Coconut barfi is born!' Or 'how about taking round balls of the warm mix and letting them roll away in dark chocolate cocoa powder to give birth to barfi truffles (or even sea-salted barfi truffles!)?' As my mother tells me, 'let your imagination take you to new heights to create further variations.' Duly instructed. Happy Diwali.

How to make Penda

This recipe makes quite a lot – perfect for large Asian families – but you can easily halve the quantities if preferred. It will keep happily in the fridge for a week or two.

What you need

1 cup double cream (250 ml)

3 cups full-cream milk powder (750g) (you can find this in all ethnic stores – Niharti is a popular brand. It is important to use the full-cream version).

¾ cup light brown soft sugar (188g)

Few strands of saffron, bathed in a teaspoon of hot double cream to help extract the colour (you can do this by heating both ingredients together in a little bowl for 5-10 seconds in the microwave – watch it carefully)

1 teaspoon cardamom powder (You can buy this as a powder or, preferably, take the black seeds from inside the green husks and grind the cardamom seeds in a pestle and mortar until you a fine powder)

Almonds (25g)

Un-salted pistachios (25g)

What to do

1. Put the cream, milk powder and sugar in a big microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 4 minutes at a medium to high heat (1000 watt)
2. Take out and stir well. Then put it back in for 2 minutes
3. Stir again, add the saffron and cardamom, and then put back in for a final 1 minute.
4. Let the dough cool for a few minutes and then take little balls (a bit smaller than a squash ball) and squash them to make a round disk – about 5cm in diameter is a nice size. You can press them into a patterned pendo mould (available in ethnic shops) or just use a fork to create some attractive patterns on your rounded disks.
5. Garnish with slivers of almond and pistachio sprinkled on top. Serve at room temperature.