Description

A mixture of dry or fresh coconut, powdered sugar, cardamoms and fried gram is stuffed into pastry sheets made from scratch for kobbari kajjikayalu. This recipe is very close to my heart and makes me really nostalgic, as we made it every single year growing up. As amma would make the stuffing and dough for the pastry, the sister and I would roll, fill the sheets with the sweet stuffing and pass it onto amma for deep frying. Although it is slightly elaborate and time-consuming, this traditional Andhra sweet is so delicious and totally worth the effort!

With a crispy exterior, Garijalu also called Kajjikaya has a sweet filling consisting of dry grated coconut, sugar and hints of cardamom. It is deep-fried and its shape as you can see, resembles Karanji; a sweet dish of Maharashtra. The crispy shell is made of maida and rolled out into circles, which is then folded after the filling is stuffed and the shape resembles a half moon. Although the origin of Garijalu is not known and has been shared between different states of India, the people of Telangana have been enjoying making these for generations over the years.