Transcript
Kopra Pak or Nariyal Ki Barfi
is a true celebration of coconut.
My mom made this all the time as mithai
for Diwali or for other celebrations.
And kopra pak
was just kind of this decadent sweet
that was made in every household was sold
at was sold at every mithai shop.
And I have a particular preference
for a type of kopra pak.
I love the mithai shop kopra pak,
that's just so decadent and coconutty
and has the creaminess from mawa
and spices added.
So I'm going to share my favorite kopra
pak.
It's so, so easy to make at home,
and I am using a couple of tips and tricks
to enhance the coconut flavor
and also to make it look super fancy
like mithai shop
Coconut Barfi or kopa pak.
So let me show you
what my ingredients are.
I'm using desiccated coconut.
This is dried coconut.
My mom always made it with fresh coconut
that she grated by hand.
And I tested it that way.
And honestly, it's not worth the effort.
So I'm going to use store-bought
dried desiccated coconut
and it works out perfectly.
I have some mawa.
This is homemade mawa,
but you can use store bought mawa as well.
And my recipe for mawa
is linked on the website.
Here is the nontraditional ingredient
I'm using evaporated coconut milk.
This works really well,
but you can use just regular evaporated milk.
Or even just regular milk or regular
coconut milk.
But I really love the flavor
that the evaporated coconut milk gets
just using regular granulated sugar
have some saffron,
which is completely optional,
but really adds to that delicious,
luxurious, decadent flavor.
Cardamom, which is also optional,
but I think it is
a must in almost all Indian sweets.
I have some chopped nuts.
I have pistachios and cashews sliced
really thinly.
These are completely optional.
You do not need to add those.
I am also using nutmeg,
which is again also optional.
And then I have a little bit of ghee
to grease my pan.
You could use anything you like
if you would like to keep it vegan
or dairy free. You can skip the ghee.
And if you'd like to make this a dairy
free recipe, a dairy free milk or coconut
milk works really well.
And instead of mawa
you can use soaked and blended cashews
like cashew cheese, which should
which would work really well as well.
The other thing that makes homemade kopra
pak special is to use
vark or silver foil,
and this is easily available on Amazon.
I'll link it in the blog post,
but adding silver
foil to any metal
just makes it so much more special.
So this is edible silver foil.
And let me show you what it looks like
if you there it is.
Edible silver foil and it's just a super,
super thin layer of silver foil
which gets added to so many different
Indian sweets.
And I love adding it to
my homemade sweets to make them
look more professional and fancy.
And just to add that extra touch of luxury
for celebrations like Diwali.
and birthdays and things like that,
a few special pieces of equipment
makes making Indian mithai so much easier,
especially this go kopra pak.
I'm using a square
cheesecake tin that I got from Amazon
and I'll link that in the blog post.
But what's amazing about this
is that the bottom separates
so literally
you can push the bottom out to create
even easy squares
and you can just kind of cut them out
and you don't have to worry
about the corner sticking
and it makes metallic
cutting and separating
just so much easier.
I also have a microplane here,
which I love for adding fresh nutmeg,
so I'll just grate the nutmeg
straight into my metal.
And then the last thing
is just a bench scraper.
I find using a bench scraper
makes cutting the squares of the mithai
so much easier than using a knife
because you can go
straight down and it easily
helps make straight lines. So
these
are just three special pieces of equipment
that I use for my mithai
and now, now let's get started.
So to start, I started my saffron blooming
by adding an ice cube to the saffron
and just trying to cover up
as much of the saffron as I possibly can
with the ice cube and just let that sit
while I get everything else ready.
And I set my pan to start heating.
And while that is heating up,
I'm going to grease my
my tray.
So I have a little bit of ghee.
I like to just use my fingers,
but a brush works really
well too.
Add the milk to a pan
and let that start heating up
add the sugar
and give that a good stir.
We're looking for the sugar
to melt completely.
So if it is starting to boil
a little bit
and the sugar is starting to melt,
it's pretty close to all melted and
now I'm going to add
the saffron
Add mawa
and let that kind of melt
and crumble a little bit, heat through.
I'm just trying to blend the mawa
a little bit.
My mawa has been in the fridge
for a couple of days and so it's just it
got a little bit dry.
So I'm just kind of letting it
get a little bit more melty.
And there it is.
It's broken up into smaller crumbles
and it's starting to melt into here.
So add
now add the coconut flakes.
I'm going to turn the heat down
to about low and just mix the flakes.
You can see the pieces of mawa
that I can just kind of mush
in now as and blend into the back,
stir and mix
and kind of mush all the mawa in.
And so it merges into just one
mixture that doesn't have clumps of
mawa left
okay, and stir for about 2 minutes,
mashing it all together.
Now add the cardamom
and grate in the nutmeg.
Just a little bit of nutmeg.
I like to do about an eighth
of a whole nutmeg and mix that in well
okay.
I'm going to test it. It's hot.
I'm just going to test it on the counter.
I'm going to comp it together.
And if it forms a shape and stays,
then it is ready to go.
And there it is. It's staying.
And it is not crumbly.
Just the perfect texture for what
I'm looking for.
There it is.
I'm going to take this off the heat
and put it into the mould.
All right?
Okay.
I'm just pushing this into my pan
and I'm using a combination
of a silicone spatula
and an offset spatula
and just kind of smoothing this out.
So now I have this in my cheesecake pan
going to add my silver foil.
It's going to take the whole thing
directly and try to
add it like that. There we go.
Just push it on.
It's going to do the same
with a second piece
and try to just do half and then
it does not have to be perfect at all
because you will have different squares
and different amounts of silver foil
and different squares is totally fine.
And then once the foil is on there,
I'm going to add a little bit of the nuts
as well.
Nuts are completely optional,
but I think they just look so pretty.
It's going to kind of push them on,
especially on the areas
where there is no foil.
Now I'm going to score the kopra pak
and then let it cool.
So I'm going to try to find
the half and push that
and kind of do the same here.
Okay?
And then do the same here.
Okay.
Now I'm going to let this cool at room
temperature for about an hour or two
and then I'll show you what it looks like
and then we'll refrigerate it.
The kopra pak has rested
for a couple of hours,
so let's unfold it.
I'm using a glass
and I'm using my cheesecake tray
that separates from the bottom,
so I just place it
on top of the glass and I slowly slide
the box down and I can move the tray
back down to my counter.
I'm going to use the offset spatula
to just kind of scrape it,
use the offset spatula
to just scrape it off the bottom.
And it just separates really nicely.
There it is.
nice and gooey,
perfectly delicious kopra pak squares.
So good.
It's really moist and coconutty
and rich and just so sweet and so good.
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