Cheat’s Penda: a Diwali dish with a British twist

Diwali is synonymous with fireworks and candles (diwas) – it is after all the ‘festival of lights’ – but sweet morsels of sugar and spice are almost as important a part of the festivities. Just as Christmas is a time when restraint rightly crumbles in the face of mince pies and lashings of brandy butter, so Diwali is an occasion for pendas, burfis, ladoos and other sweet largesse.

Most of these sweets have in common plenty of ghee (clarified butter) and goor (unrefined jaggery), as well as lots of spice (cardamom and saffron are particularly ubiquitous) and often nuts. As delicious as it all sounds, Indian sweets often suffer from a bad reputation, in particular for being tooth-achingly sweet. Indeed they can be when bought ready-made but making them yourself allows you to play around with the quantities, reducing the sugar a bit and increasing the use of the expensive spices that bought versions sometimes skimp on but are so key to the flavour.