Convenient and Delicious Dessert: 7 Cups

7 Cups recipe has been passed on from my grandmother to my mom, and now is one of my favourites too. Welcome to the delights of this traditional Indian sweet that is extremely popular in the southern part of India.

You can follow the recipe for the traditional variety. It is somewhat similar to a barfi. However, I have a modified version for people who do not like their dessert to be too sweet. You will find this in the ‘Notes’ section, after the recipe.

Why “7 Cups”?

If you are wondering about the strange name, just count the number of cups mentioned in the recipe below! No surprises there… yes, there are 7 cups of ingredients needed for this recipe. Since all the units are in cups, you can use any cup of your liking…big or small does not matter.

7 cups is the sweet of choice whenever I need to make an Indian dessert that I can carry around. No oily patches, no sloshing of liquids, no sticky mess! Just delicious and dry and convenient to serve and eat pieces of a unique kind.

Traditional Indian sweets are fascinating… indeed, a subject on its own… and evolving fast. From the golden brown gulab jamuns to the awesome payasams, they all have different versions in each region and each family. If you are interested, you can go through the list of Indian desserts here.

When I am not traveling, I thoroughly enjoy my other desserts such as the delicious Chocolate Cheesecake or this Burnt Basque Cheesecake or even the Pumpkin Pie But when you want to have a compact and easy to manage Indian sweet, just go for the 7 cups sweet.

It is not hard, it is not soft… but it does have a bite to it. If you are new to the world of Indian Sweets, and want to try making one, I’d really recommend this. It is gratifying indeed!

Also, try to make this in batches of the measures I have mentioned here rather than doubling the recipe. In case you want larger quantities, try to have someone with you to help with the stirring. But I would still recommend that you make smaller batches so that the colour is retained.

7 Cups

Recipe by Sheetal RabindranCourse: DessertCuisine: IndianDifficulty: Medium

Servings

30

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

1

hour 

Ingredients

• 1 cup besan (chick pea flour)

• 1 cup scraped fresh coconut, packed firmly

• 1 cup ghee, melted in gentle heat and kept warm

• 1 cup milk

• 3 cups sugar

Directions

• Put all the ingredients except the ghee in a thick-bottomed pan.
• Stir on medium heat till it starts leaving the sides of the vessel.
• Start adding spoonfuls of melted ghee into the mixture.
• Keep stirring well, and let all the ghee get absorbed.
• By now, the mixture will start coming together and leave the sides of the pan. Also, test by adding a small amount on a plate and see if it solidifies in a few minutes.
• Grease a flat tray with ghee. Pour out the mixture into the prepared tray.
• Use the flat portion of a greased dish to smooth out the 7 cups to the desired thickness.
• Cut into squares or diamond shapes.

Notes

• Use only a thick-bottomed pan or a triply vessel to make 7-cups. Otherwise the sweet will burn or change colour.
• You can decorate the top of the sweet with slivers of dry fruits while it is still hot. Press gently.
• To make the 7 cups richer, you can add cashew nut powder to the cup of coconut.
• For making the dish with lesser sweetness, try this: Replace a cup of sugar with a cup of powdered cashew nuts.
• Scraping the coconut with a coconut scraper will give you the best results. However, you can also pulse chunks of coconut in your food processor till you get a granular (not paste-like) texture. I use the traditional scraper that you can see in the picture.