Butterscotch Toffee Sheera

Quick and easy Indian fusion dessert for the festival of Holi, welcoming spring.

Holi, the joyful Hindu festival, welcomes spring with vivid colors ! The legend behind it is one of victory of good over evil.

On the day of Holi, everyone is fair game as people color each other with vibrant color powders, colored water and water balloons. So imagine stepping out of the house, not knowing when and who is eager to splash some color on you! Growing up in India, we wore  old clothes as we knew they our clothes were going to get ruined on Holi day. It is all in fun of course, so more and more people join in. I remember the international students asking me about the festival and joining in exuberantly.

I also love Holi because this festival crosses barriers of age, religion, caste, economic class etc. Plus, splashed with all different colors, no one takes themselves seriously, old grievances seem trivial and foes become friends again. How nice is that?

No wonder then, that Holi has become very popular on college campuses here in the US too. I remember one tour at a school in the Midwest given by a student saying “And this is our Holi quad, where we play with colors”.

Of course no festival is complete without the food. In Maharashtra, puranpoli, a stuffed sweet bread, is traditionally made for Holi. It is extremely delicious, all drizzled with ghee….yum…. but also quite labor intensive.

The butterscotch toffee sheera (or kesari) is my experiment for a quick and easy, fusion dessert using the traditional ingredient, rawa (cream of wheat) and the Jello butterscotch instant pudding mix.  With this combination, I could still get that flavor with just 1/2 tablespoon of ghee or butter. My recipe below yields a soft and sticky ‘toffee like’ sheera which is not too sweet because I topped the warm sheera with cool butterscotch pudding ‘sauce’. If you like a grainier sheera, reduce the amount of milk by 1/2 cup and add more ghee to the recipe. Also I used milk with 1% fat but whole milk will also add more fat to it to make it grainier. Either way, it is absolutely yummy!

Enjoy! Wishing you all a Happy Spring! I am taking my warm Butterscotch Toffee Sheera and celebrating Holi with my friends at Fiesta Friday hosted by Angie, and her amazing co hosts,  Naina @ Spice in the City and Julianna @ Foodie On Board.

Love,

Sandhya