Munthiri cake is a soft melt-in-the-mouth fudge made with cashew nuts, sugar, and ghee. Munthiri means cashews in Tamil, and it is the key ingredient in this dish.
I have heard of munthiri cake, which is served at weddings down South. But never felt the need to try it out or even taste it for that matter. My quest and trials started when one of my friends asked me if I had a recipe for it.
Munthiri cake is wrongly construed as the more popular kaju katli by most people, whereas it is something completely different. In fact, if you ask me I would say it’s a cross between kaju katli and mysurpa.
If you are a fan of both these traditional Indian sweets then you should have started drooling by now 😀 . I do not have a sweet tooth still I found this one very hard to resist. Oh so delicious….
And I have some good news for people who are reluctant to try making sweets out of fear of going wrong. This dish is forgiving. Means you can fix it even if you go wrong.
Simply grind everything together and keep sauteeing till it thickens and leaves the sides of the pan. Normally the burfi and fudge kinds do need some expertise. But you can go wrong even if you are good at it.
I have been there. So this is my troubleshooting tip. Whether it turns out gooey or hard, just add about ¼ cup of hot water to the contents and mix well to make a homogenous mixture.
Transfer this to the stove and start the sauteeing again. But this time be more cautious. Trust me it works. The picture above is proof of this 😀 .
My family loved it. For us, it tasted way better than kaju katli and maybe you will feel that way too. So give it a try today. I bet you will fall in love.
Over to the recipe…
Munthiri cake/cashew fugde
Ingredients
- ½ cup cashew nuts
- 1 cup milk
- ½ cup sugar (+2tbsp)
- ½ cup ghee
- a big pinch of cardamom powder
Instructions
- Soak the cashew nuts in the milk for an hour.
- Grind this to a nice paste in a mixer grinder. To this add half a cup of sugar and cardamom powder and grind. Taste test and add more sugar if needed.
- Grease a small tray liberally with some ghee and keep it ready.
- Heat up a tbsp of ghee in a pan. Add the ground paste to it and keep sauteeing on medium flame, adding the remaining ghee at regular intervals.
- When it leaves the sides of the pan and gathers together, transfer it to the greased pan and level it up with a ladle.
- Let it cool a bit and slice it into even-sized pieces. Allow it to completely cool before serving.
Hema’s P.S
- Add sugar as per personal preference. ½ cup + 2 tbsp was perfect for us. You may require more or less.
- I have used unrefined raw sugar here.
- If you do not want to use milk, you can skip it and just soak it in hot water.
- A good non-stick pan will be good for this.
- Start with a small quantity if you are not confident enough
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