Sweets

"Aluwa"

Intro:
This sweet is quite commanly made in many parts of Sri Lanka. Eventhough it has an Indian origin, it has now been uniquly adapted to the culture. This sweet is mainly made during the New Year festival and is considered as a must in the traditional new year festival table...

You will need...
650 grams -  Rice flour (prepared from about 350 grams of raw white rice)
1/2 litres - Coconut or Kithul treacle
1/2 tsp - powdered Cardamom
25 grams - Chopped Cashew nuts

This is how you make...
Soak the raw white rice in water for about 8 - 12 hours, drain it and grind it finely. Take the rice flour and lightly roast it in a flat heavy bottom pan. Leave aside 1/4th of the roasted flour.
Pour the treacle in to a pan and bring to boil while stirring constantly. You should boil the treacle until it reaches the proper texture (when being taken with a spoon, the treacle should draw out as small threads).
Then take the pan off the heat and stir for a while. Mix the cardamom with the larger quantity of flour. Add this mixture little by little to treacle while stirring (the mixture should be smooth, but not too watery or thick. then it becomes hard to set).
take a little of the set aside flour, spread it on a tray or cutting board and pour the mixture over and spread it evenly (to a square or round shape).
Then sprinkle some more of the flour on top and cut it in to squares (sqaure or diamond shape).

Things you might want to know...
Use rice flour prepared at home (from raw white rice). If you use the rice flour available in retail shops, the Aluwa tends to be a sticky and also tastes differently.
You can also use sugar instead of treacle (2 cups sugar dissolved in a bit of water and boiled as above). but treacle is much more tastier plus it will give the sweet a nice colour and texture. Enjoy...