modern diwali

for diwali this year, my derani and i decided to go a bit non-traditional for our diwali food that we hand out to family. we took a couple of traditional diwali snacks and modernized them:

• honey almond biscotti
• chai truffles
• chevro poppers
• chocolate, walnut, almond gugara

chevro poppers were created out of an attempt to find a diwali-friendly alternative to rice krispies squares. it's just peanut butter spiced with red chili powder, tumeric powder, ground coriander and cumin, and salt, then mixed with chevro formed into balls. pretty simple.. and it turned out pretty delicious :)

i don't know how to make the standard gugara filling, so instead i made a chocolate alternative.

1. toast almonds and walnuts
2. throw them into a food processor with chocolate pieces
3. mix in cinnamon and icing sugar

the dough is the exact same as a traditional gugara. mum suggested i add a bit of cardamom in, which is a common spice for indian sweets. i would have, except i forgot to do that :S

i was lucky for the boxes. the local michael's had a scrapbook pad called taj mahal. the pad was all cardstock which was great for boxes, and the patterns in the book were perfect for diwali.

overall our plate turned out really awesome! i'm pretty happy with what we managed to accomplish.