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Seven-Cup Cake / Besan-Coconut Burfi

Tried and tested recipe for 7 cup cake - an Indian fudge sweet made using besan, ghee, coconut and semolina. Perfect for any festive occasion.
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Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings: 4 serving
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 1 cup besan (gram flour)
  • 1 cup ghee
  • 1 cup coconut freshly scraped or desiccated
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 cups sugar [if your is not as sweet then add 1/4-1/2 cup more]
  • strands saffron cardamom OR powder for flavouring

Method
 

  1. Grease a 9 X 9 baking sheet (or a deep dish) ghee and keep aside.
  2. In a heavy bottomed wok, place 2 tbsp ghee.
  3. Add the cup of besan to this and on a very low flame, roast it till fragrant - say around 4-5 minutes. Keep a close watch and saute constantly so as not to let the gram flour brown or burn.
  4. In a large bowl, mix all the remaining ingredients including flavouring of choice {saffron strands or cardamom.
  5. Once the gram flour is aromatic, tip the contents of the bowl into a wok. Keeping the flame low at all times, constantly keep stirring the contents till reduced to nearly half. For the quantities specified, this takes 15-17 minutes.
  6. At the end of 15 minutes, immediately transfer the contents of the wok onto the greased baking sheet.
  7. Smoothen out the surface with the edge of a flat spatula or by patting under few layers of foil, to make the heat bearable.
  8. Score into squares or diamonds using a pizza cutter /knife.
  9. Cut out when completely cool.

Notes

The recipe is traditionally called a seven cup cake or the seven heaven cake because of three cups of sugar and 1 each of other 4 ingredients, making it easy to remember. However, in my experience, 2 cups of sugar is more than enough for our generation's sweet tooth. And even my grandparents are quite happy with that :)