1 Holige
Holige is also known as Obbatu in many parts of South India. In Maharashtra, it is famous by the name Sweet Poli. This is a traditional sweet prepared by the South Indians during any happy and auspicious occasion to embark their happiness. The method of preparing this sweet is a bit of tedious job but trust me it is worth all the work done. This tastes best with ghee or kaayi rasa (i.e. a combination of milk, coconut, banana and sugar). You also get these readymade in many places in Bangalore the places where I found them to be amazing are “Holige Mane”.
Here is a brief description of how this sweet is prepared:
The main ingredients to make this sweet is toor dal which is called togari bele in South India and jaggery otherwise called as Bella. Last but not the least all-purpose flour (Maida) is used for the dough to stuff in the stuffing and finally is cooked on tawa. Now delicious holige is ready to eat. Yumm!!
All in all this is one of my favourite sweets which is prepared in South India.
2. Mysore Pak
This sweet has a history of more than a century. The history of this sweet goes back all, the time when Mysuru which was the then capital of Karnataka was being ruled by Mysuru Maharajas. Kakasura Madappa was one of the cooks in Maharaja’s kitchen and it is said that Mysore Pak was his sudden creation to impress the Maharaja about his cooking skills, which he earned because of this sweet. This sweet still retains its prominence in people’s heart and it is still a treat for sweet tooth. The sweet basically takes its name from the local word called paka which means sugar syrup. The three essential ingredients in this sweet are – ghee, chickpea powder and sugar which when combined forms this absolutely mouth-watering sweet with a golden hue. The exact description I can give for this sweet is that, this melts in your mouth like drops of heaven. Gundappa sweets in Bengaluru are famous for their delicious Mysore Pak.
3 Godi Nucchu Paysa
Godi nucchu otherwise known as broken wheat is very healthy since it contains a lot of fibre and this is not the refined wheat grains so comparatively healthy. This basically consists of jaggery and broken wheat which are handy and the procedure to prepare this sweet is also very easy. This sweet is many people’s favourite because of the unique taste of the blend of wheat and jaggery.
4 Karchi Kaayi
Also known as karanji is basically a North Karnataka dish but savoured by all the south Indians. This is mostly prepared on the day of Ganapathi Chaturthi and offered to the God as sweets are considered as Lord Ganapathi’s favourite. This is also a very simple and easy sweet. Consists of very few and easily available ingredients like sugar, dry coconut and maida (all-purpose flour). A dry mixture of sugar and grated dry coconut is prepared, later which are filled inside dough made out of maida and later is deep fried. What makes this different from the sweets which are already mentioned is that this one is crispy and not that healthy compared to the above sweets and hence tastes different but so are the other sweets equally delicious.
5. Jackfruit Halwa
As it is clear from the name this is a sweet whose main ingredient has to be jackfruit. Originally a Tamil Nadu sweet but now you find it in almost all of South India. Consists of sugar and jackfruit, the jackfruit segments are cut and a paste is made and later it is boiled till we get the syrupy texture with a bit of coarseness and sugar is added based on requirement, cardamom powder is recommended but it is highly optional, topped up with cashew nuts fried in ghee for it to taste best. Few people prefer to it eat with a bit of milk too.
6 Karigedabu
You can say this is another type of karchi kaayi, but the filling gives it a very different taste. The ingredient consists of togari bele (toor dal) and jaggery. Dal is boiled and later grinded to a fine paste with jaggery syrup and is used as a filling and later fried. I like this better than karchi kaayi.
7. Kaayi Holige
Another modified version of holige the only aspect it differs again in the stuffing which is used here. The stuffing used here is grated dry coconut along with jaggery syrup, tastes entirely different from holige mentioned earlier. But not to forget this yet again an amazing sweet.
8 Gas Gase Paysa
This is yet another payasam prepared and is really famous. This contains couscous which is considered to be the traditional ingredient of Africans. The speciality of couscous (gas gase) is that when this is consumed you feel really sleepy, which is why I personally love this. The other ingredients remain the same jaggery and a bit of milk.
9 Kadle Bele Payasa
This is another payasam; South Indians are famous for using jaggery in our sweets and for a lot of payasam. Which you already should have known by now after reading these sweets I have already mentioned. So this contains kadale bele (Bengal gram) which is pressure cooked and later is added with jaggery and coconut milk. There are many optional ingredients you can again choose here, totally depends on how you like it.
10. Jehangir
Imarti or Jhangri mean all the same. But this is not supposed to be confused with Jalebi which is totally different from Jhangri. Jhangri is made up of Uddin bele (urad dal) and fried in the shape as shown in the picture using piping technique, where the pipe is usually made up of cloth. Later this is dipped in sugar syrup.
11 Peni
This is a famous sweet and can be found being served in a typical South Indian weddings. This is very easy to cook also, essentially the ingredients vary upon the type of peni you want to prepare. But all the types of peni’s are served with almond or badam milk, and it is really mouth-watering.
12 Antina Unde
It is a very healthy sweet which consists of varieties of dry fruits and nuts which are combined using edible gum (antu) or gondh. It is usually served to the pregnant ladies because it is considered to have all the nutrients and vitamins.
13. Kesari Bath
This sweet is one such type of sweet that can be found in even the smallest café in South India. It is almost like a South India restaurant is not complete without this sweet in there menu, people usually eat this with Uppit (upma) usually called chow chow baath. These two are the best combination and they complement each other as well. Kesari bath has its name basically derived cause of the Kesari colour (saffron) due to the addition of Kesari while preparing it. This is not only very tasty but it is also very easy and fast to prepare, the dish most South Indians choose to prepare on the sudden arrival of guests.
14. Chiroti
Yet another amazing South Indian sweet creations. Maida, sooji rava and sugar powder or badam powder are used. Maida dough is rolled into a huge circle and later is folded and rounded up and fried. Later sugar or badam powder is sprinkled upon it.
15. Sweet Pongal
Why is it called sweet Pongal? Because Pongal is another Tamilian dish prepared which is spicy. This is a famous Tamilian sweet dish which is traditionally prepared on the occasion of Pongal (a harvest festival) also called as Sankrathi.
16 Seven Cups
The name says it all, it 1 cup each of the 7 ingredients which are sugar, ghee, besan, grated coconut and milk. All the components used blend very well with each other. And this is very easy to prepare however it can be a little tricky because even if one of the ingredient is not added in the right quantity then the sweet will not be perfect.
17. Kobbari Mithai
It is a burfi made from kobbari (coconut) and sugar. Yet another easy sweet which requires few ingredients. You just have to mix grated coconut with sugar syrup in a hot temperature and put it on a plate and allow it cool and harden. Then cut them into pieces of whatever size you want to and they are ready to eat.
18 Rave Unde
This is a laddu (unde) prepared from rave (sooji) and sugar syrup and badam or cashew nuts are added, which is optional. All the ingredients are mixed together and made into balls and left to cool.
19. Boondi Laddu
This is another very famous sweet which is served in every South Indian wedding. Also offered to Lord Ganapathi on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi.
20. Coconut Laddu
The way of preparing all the laddos is same only the ingredients differ from one another. It’s not a huge change of all the ingredients, only one or two ingredients are changed and those small changes bring about a vast difference in taste. As the name says, the main element here used is coconut. We can also use Cardamom powder here.
