Moulded Sugar Sweet :: Sakkare Acchu

Moulded Sugar Sweet :: Sakkare Acchu :: Panchadara Chilakalu

Here is a sweet which is prepared across south India during Harvest Festival in the month of January called as "Shankranti" sometimes also called as "Pongal". During this time you can find this sweet sold in local markets especially in South India. But traditionally this is a sweet done at home with family members. It is a fun activity for the kids to watch the sweet being done and even participate. In the home often it is done in the proper traditional way with the right ingredients and technique, and the final outcome and the taste of the sweet done this way will far surpass any store counterparts.

It is locally called as "Sakkare Acchu" in Kannada and called as Panchadara Chilakalu in Telugu language and so on. In some parts they make mould it in solid shapes as shown above which is around 2-5 inches in size. Whereas commercially sold ones are done in much larger hollow shapes, and in the form of animals, birds, especially in the form of Parrots. Hence the name: Chilakalu which means Parrot in Telugu.

One have to understand before trying out this dish, is that it needs some amount of practice patience and above all have fun doing it. If not done in right technique you will not get desired results.

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Ingredients:
Refined Sugar - 6 large glasses
Food colour - 1 pinch (optional)
Milk - 1 large glass
Curd/Yogurt - 1/2 cup
Water - 2.5 to 3 glasses

Traditional Wooden moulds: These moulds are sold in local Indian Markets especially during festive season. Usually these moulds are made in teak wood, they are incredibly durable and can be something passed from one generation to next generation. You will get moulds of various sizes and shapes. Here in this case we had chosen square moulds with an inverted pyramid shape.

Note: You can choose heat-resistant silicone chocolate moulds too. And this post we show you doing in both kinds of moulds.

Dissolve the sugar slowly in water by placing it on a low flame. The quantity of water taken is not that important. The water have to submerge the sugar as shown. If the consistency is too watery you can add a bit more sugar, if it is too thick you can add a bit of water.

Gently heat till it gets dissolved, you can see from the below picture that sugar is almost dissolved.

Now add milk to the same. Milk gives rich aroma and softer texture. Often store purchased one may not have enough or no milk at all, that makes them tastes like just moulded sugar. And this is where home made ones are preferred and worth the effort.

Meanwhile we all your wooden moulds by soaking it in water as shown.

Note: Unlike Silicone moulds which are flexible, wooden moulds are hard. Sometimes it may get struck and it is difficult to remove. Soaked wooden moulds will solve this issue.

Once the mixture is gently brought to a boil, you can turn off the flame.

Important Note: One have to understand that this entire process is done in low heat. This is not to be confused with candy making process. Usually if you make candy, the temperatures involved is around >110'C. It is usually way too hot. In this recipe you need to just maintain around 80-90'C. This is completely a colder process. And so we need to make sure Sugar should never caramelize during the process.

Filter this content through a soft cotton cloth as shown.

Now add curd/yogurt into this mixture. Give it a through stir so that everything gets mixed well. During this process make sure it is not placed on to a stove.

Now filter it again with a soft cotton cloth as shown. In the end you get a saturated sugar syrup with both milk and yogurt extract.

Now take another empty vessel, and take a small batch of sugar syrup filtered earlier. Gently heat the same on a low flame. It will slowly boil and gets thicker and thicker for around 8-10 minutes. Make sure you keep mixing this contents with a ladle. If you stop mixing it may form immediate lumps and may harden prematurely.

Once it is almost thick, take it off the heat, and continue stirring as shown. Slowly it should become translucent and turn slowly opaque.

Here is the same after even more stirring, it becomes very thick (like a resin) almost getting fully opaque.

Once the right consistency is reached, you can now immediately pour it into the moulds as shown.

Once the contents harden in the moulds, you can tap the mould couple of times to release the same. Once a batch is done, you can wash the mould and prepare for the next pour.

Once it is poured into the moulds, you can add again one more batch of filtered syrup to this small container and repeat the same process, of heating it, and when it gets thicker, pour into moulds.

Important Note: Sometimes if the syrup is not at the right consistency, it may set in the vessel itself even before pouring into the mould. If this happens, you can pour some syrup (from the large vessel obtained after filtering) or add little water, and continue.

Important Note: If the syrup is not set in the mould, it may happen if you pour in the mould prematurely. If this happens, just scoop the contents from the mould into the vessel, wash the mould and repeat in next batch.

Note: Optionally you can use food colour of your choice for more fun.

You can also use chocolate silicone moulds optionally as shown. Wooden moulds need a certain amount of skill and practice. But Silicone moulds are extremely easy to deal with. If your mould is not set, it is extremely easy to deal with Silicone mould to deal with the mess unlike the wooden moulds !