Ubbatti/Holige is a favourite in our family and often prepared. My mom used to make it of 5 cups and the whole process would take about 3-4 hours. It was my brother’s favourite sweet, so ammaa used to prepare them quite often. The Ubbatti smeared with ghee is truly lip smacking delicious. I make it of 1 cup, that would yield about 20 Ubbattis. It’s time consuming so if you would like, one can prepare the stuffing or hooran in advance and refrigerate. Next day the outer dough can be prepared and pan frying can be done.

In Bangalore, it’s prepared mostly for festivals like Sankranti, Ugadi.  During marriages serving Ubbatti, adds value to the event. They call it holige oota. People serve it with thick sweetened milk too. There are few varieties of Holige. It can be prepared with Maida/ All purpose flour or with fine rava( cream of wheat). For the filling either chanadal or grated coconut is used. The following recipe is with chanadal and all purpose flour.

 

Ingredients

 1 cup- Chanadal

1 cup-jaggery (you can use brown sugar but take 3-4 table spoons more)

1 ½ cup All Purpose Flour/Maida

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon mustard/mustard powder

2 teaspoons rava

4-5 pods of cardamoms

3 cloves

2 serving spoons refined vegetable oil

Method

Cook chanadal in a pressure cooker for about 15 minutes with 3 cups of water. Drain the water and grind the dal. If needed add few spoons of drained water. Add jaggery to the chanadal paste and heat it up slow fire. Keep stirring. Take care not to burn the paste. It will thicken and the process may take about 20-25 minutes. Add cloves and cardamom powder. Stir it well. Allow it to cool. Make balls.

Grind rava, turmeric, mustard to a fine paste with little water like chutney.  Make a dough using the paste, All purpose flour and required water. Dough shouldn’t stick to your finger.  Add oil and knead it well. Leave it covered for ½ an hour.

Make small roundels with the flour dough. Keep the chanadal  ball in the center and fold it well so that the chanadal ball is fully covered.

Now roll the balls lightly after dusting in the flour as thin as possible.  Care should be taken while rolling otherwise the filling comes out and rolling it becomes messy. Some of them use papers underneath so that rolling becomes easy.

Heat the pan on medium and roast them on both the sides. They puff up if they are rolled properly. Serve warm with Ghee/ clarified butter.

Pictures step by step