KALKALS OR KULKULS

KALKALS or KULKULS are prepared all over India at Christmas. They are crunchy, inch-long, curled or shell shaped sweetened fried dough sweets. Sugar and flour are combined with eggs, milk and butter to form a soft dough and then small marble sized balls of this dough are rolled on the tines of a fork or a comb to form a shell or a scroll and then deep fried in hot oil. The dough is sometimes rolled out and cut into different shapes such as hearts, spades, diamonds etc. with cutters or a knife and then deep fried in hot oil. The Kulkuls are later frosted or coated in hot melted sugar syrup. Making Kalkals is a time consuming process and thus requires many hands in its preparation. Hence a few days before Christmas, a separate day is designated as ‘Kalkal Day’ when every member of the family spends a few hours rolling out his/her portion of the Kalkal dough. While one doesn’t know how the name ‘Kalkals / Kulkuls’ got its nomenclature it is probably because of the “curls” of this particular Christmas sweet.   RECIPE FOR KALKALS(Fried sweetened balls of dough)   Serves: 6   Preparation time: 1 hour   Ingredients   300 grams unsalted butter or ghee 1 kg refined flour  6 eggs beaten well 2 cups thick coconut milk                 ½ teaspoon salt                              300 grams sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder              Oil for deep frying Mix the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder together. Add the coconut milk and eggs and knead a soft dough. Keep aside for an hour. Form Kalkals by taking small lumps of the dough and roll on the back of a fork or a wooden Kalkal mould, to form a scroll. Alternately, roll out the dough and cut into fancy shapes with Kalkal or cookie cutters. Heat oil in a deep pan and fry as many Kalkals as possible at a time. Keep aside. To frost the Kalkals, melt 1 cup of sugar with ½ cup of water and when the sugar syrup crystallizes pour over the Kalkals and mix well. Store in airtight boxes when cold.