Khoya - Alternatives

Khoya or mawa is basically dried milk used for making most sweet dishes. You can get khoya from stores if you lived in India. Outside India you are out of luck. But then you don't just give up on your favorite sweets, certainly not if you know you ways around the kitchen. Well, even if you didn't, after reading this article I'm sure you would. 

Khoya can be made at home from first principles, however it is very time consuming. Commercially, Khoya is prepared by boiling and reducing the milk to a semi-solid stage. There are different types of khoya depending on the use of ingredients and moisture content. You get different consistencies (and different names) in the market for preparing different kind of sweets.

Hard Khoya (Batti Ka Khoya)

This is the toughest khoya usually sold in moulded form. It's made out of full fat milk and used primarily for burfies and laddoos.

Smooth Khoya (Chikna Khoya)

Made out of low fat milk, it is loose and sticky in consistency with a higher moisture content. Good for making gulab jamuns, rabri and halwas.

Granulated Khoya (Danedar khoya)

This kind of khoya has a consistency between the above two and is granulated. The granules come from the fact that milk is curdled slightly before evaporating it. Kalakand and certain types of laddus used this kind of khoya.

Well, that's all about what is available in stores. How do we go about preparing at home ? Here are the alternatives that you might want to try.

  1. Condensed milk (and omit sugar in the recipe)
  2. Powdered Milk mixed with heavy cream
  3. Unsalted Ricotta cheese - Take two cups of ricotta cheese, cook it for about 10 minute in a non-stick sauce pan. Add two tablespoon butter to it and three cups of carnation dry milk powder. Keep on stirring constantly, until it reaches "Khoya" consistency, about 7 minutes on medium heat.
  4. Take milk powder. knead it like chapati dough not tight but loose. Take a muslin cloth. Tranfer the dough on it. Sprinkle some water on it. Then tie the ends of the cloth to form a bundle. Steam this bundle in a pressure cooker with water. Don't let the bundle touch the water, you can put the bundle in a vessel before putting it in cooker. Cook it till u hear 2 whistles and then switch the gas off. Open the cooker after it cools. Unknot the bundle. Remove the mava after it cools down completely.
  5. You might find something called Mawa powder in indian grocery stores. However this is nothing but milk powder packaged with this name.
  6. Take 2 cups of any dry milk powder or how much u want just make hard dough with peak milk or any drinking milk. wrap any nylon or cloth freez for one hr. After that remove from freezer grate it on grater and use for any receipe.
  7. Mix 1 cup of any milk powder and  1/2 cup of white butter and add enough milk to make a batter of Cake consistency. Cover and Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Mix with a fork and again cover and microwave on high for 1 to 3 minutes (this time varies with the type of microwave used). When the khoya is ready it will be dry, there will be no moisture of the milk in it.
  8. If a recipe calls for sweet khoya, condensed milk may be used to blend the butter and milk together to batter-like consistency.
  9. In a bowl take 3 cups of full cream milk powder and 300ml of thickened cream and can of condence milk keep in microwave on high for 4 min then stir it then again keep it for 4 min stir it and your khoya is ready you can add it in halwa or make burfi or pedha.

- Lata Anand (resident chef at khanakhazana.com)