Looking for a good Shankarpali recipe?

Question

This is a sweet Maharashtrian treat.

Answer 1

Recipe 1

Ingredients:

1 cup water

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup ghee

1 1/2 cup plain flour

Oil or Ghee for frying

Warm the water, sugar and ghee together till sugar dissolves. Add flour  and knead into a soft pliable dough. Divide dough into 4 parts. Roll into rounds about 1/3" thick. Cut with a cookie cutter or knife into small diamond shapes, about 1 " squares. Lift with spatula and loosen. Keep aside on a dry cloth for 1 hour.

Deep fry in hot ghee or oil over slow flame till light golden brown. Drain well on a kitchen paper towel and keep aside till cool. Store in an airtight container.

Recipe 2

Ingredients:

1 cup(approx) sugar

1 cup water

3/4 cup vanaspathi ghee(dalda) - hydrogenated vegetable oil or normal ghee + oil/ghee/dalda for deep frying

4 cups(approx) maida or all purpose flour

1/2 tea spn salt

The amount of sugar given above makes these very mildly sweet. So increase it if you want to make them more sweet. I didn’t measure flour properly, so if needed, add more/less flour to make the dough. Aayi always uses dalda, which makes these very light and tasty, since I read somewhere about ghee, I mentioned that too.

Method:

Heat sugar with 3/4 cup ghee/dalda and water till the sugar and ghee/dalda melts. Take off the heat and let it cool to room temperature.

Now add salt, flour and knead it into a tight dough. Keep it aside for 30mins.

Heat dalda/ghee for deep frying (I used 1/2 dalda + 1/2 oil).

Knead the dough well. Take a big ball and roll it into a round of desired thickness (if required, dust lightly with dry flour).

Dip the edge of a knife in dry loose flour(this avoids sticking) and cut into square pieces.

Deep fry the pieces in oil till they are dark brown. Take out on a paper towel.

Allow them to cool to room temperature and then store in air tight container.

Preparation time : 2hrs

PS: This measurement makes fairly large batch of shankarpals. So if it is your first time, start with half the quantity mentioned above.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Many Thanks Steve G:

My kids cant get enough of this snack , I am looking forward to trying the recipes you just posted!  They look delicious!

Thanks,

Desi Chef

Answer 3

I purposely left the Prep directions off this post but the link is at the bottom. I studied several recipes and have found this one to be the best in my opinion, also for those that don't know how to make Ghee I've posted the link as well. Clicking the link and looking at the picture might stir folks to give these a try.

Shankarpali

Makes about 1.5 kg of these crispy little babies.

Ingredients:

1 cup oil or Ghee (We used oil.)

1 cup milk

1 ¼ cup sugar (This amount of sugar makes moderately sweet Shankarpali. If you like your sweets to be really sweet, you could consider using more.)

a pinch of salt

approx. 5 cups all-purpose flour (Please refer to the instructions below.)

Oil or Ghee for deep-frying (We used oil, but I like the taste more when we use Ghee.)

Answer 4

1 cup water

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup ghee

1 1/2 cup plain flour

Oil or Ghee for frying

Warm the water, sugar and ghee together till sugar dissolves. Add flour  and knead into a soft pliable dough. Divide dough into 4 parts. Roll into rounds about 1/3" thick. Cut with a cookie cutter or knife into small diamond shapes, about 1 " squares. Lift with spatula and loosen. Keep aside on a dry cloth for 1 hour.

Deep fry in hot ghee or oil over slow flame till light golden brown. Drain well on a kitchen paper towel and keep aside till cool. Store in an airtight container.