If you bought the almonds with their thin, brown skin, you start by soaking them in a bowl of water. This will make the skin soft and will make it easy for you to peel the almonds.

Here in India, many sweets are made from milk. A lot of these, are not directly from liquid milk but from khoa, also written khoya, a form of thickened milk. In India, you can buy this easily in the market. You can, however, also make it yourself. It takes time and effort but is not really difficult to prepare:

Put the milk into a deep pan or a wok and heat it up. Get it to boil and stir. And keep on boiling and stirring, boiling and stirring. It is really important that you stir all the time to prevent the milk from burning to the bottom. That’s how it is nice to have a helper for this task – just never stop stirring! The milk will reduce in volume and slowly it will get thicker until you only have about a fifth of the volume you started with and a consistency of ricotta cheese.

When the khoa is solid, you need to roast it a bit more, until it is golden. The whole process of making this golden khoa can take up to three hours and you will start smelling the ready product in your kitchen! Once done, place it aside and let it cool down.

Put the sesame seeds into a deep pan and start roasting them on low heat. Stir without interruption, as they are very sensitive and can burn easily. Once they are golden as well, take the seeds out of the pan and place them aside to let them cool down.

If you have soaked your almonds, you can now remove their skin. Break the almonds and the cashew nuts into four pieces. Warm up the ghee in a pan and add the cashew nuts and almonds into it. When the nuts are golden, add raisins and let them get warm for half a minute as well. Switch off the stove and take the nuts, almonds and raisins out. Let them all cool down as well.

Once everything, your khoa, sesame seeds and the mixture of nuts are cold, you put all these ingredients and the sugar powder into a bowl. Mix everything together in a big pot. Mash the ingredients together by hand, so that everything sticks well to the khoa.

Now you just need to roll balls out of the mixture. Keep them in the fridge if you don’t eat them on the same day.

Enjoy!