Mohanthal
Preparation Time
12 minutes
Cooking Time
28 minutes
Difficulty Level
moderate
Meal Type
Dessert
Serves 12
Key Ingredients
- Besan (chickpea flour)
About This Recipe
Mohanthal is the crumb-textured sweet of the roasted-besan family: the flour is rubbed with ghee into clumps, sieved into even crumbs and roasted before the syrup ever touches it. That crumb, not a smooth paste, is the whole point, and it is also the difference between mohanthal and besan barfi, which roasts the flour plain and binds it into a dense, smooth slab.
The ratio that gives mohanthal its crumb is 4 tablespoons (60 g) of ghee rubbed into a cup (120 g) of besan, enough to clump the flour like wet sand before it is sieved; one more spoon of ghee greases the tray and one goes on top. The syrup then has to be boiled to one string, because a soft syrup leaves the sweet sticky and the pieces will not come out of the tray whole.
The slab is pressed lightly, never packed: pressing squeezes the crumb and hardens the sweet as it sets. Mohanthal keeps for about two weeks in a closed tin, longer in the fridge. The same flour, roasted plain and sweetened with jaggery, is the soft-set besan ka halwa.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Mohanthal
- Besan (chickpea flour) — 1 cup
- Ghee (4 tbsp for the dough, 1 to grease, 1 on top) — 6 tbsp
- White sugar — 10 tbsp
- Water — 1/2 cup
- Cardamom Powder — 1/2 tsp
To finish
- Slivered almonds or pistachios — 1 tbsp
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Serving Suggestions
Have a square with chai in the afternoon, or lay them on a festive platter beside other sweets; they hold their shape well in a dabba. The besan recipes roundup gathers the whole gram flour repertoire, and the besan ka halwa is the soft-set cousin of this sweet.
Tips for Cooking Mohanthal
Rub the ghee into the flour by hand and take your time; the clumps are what become the crumb. Roast the crumbs gently, stirring from the bottom, so they toast without turning powdery. Boil the syrup to exactly one string: a cooled drop, pinched between finger and thumb, should pull into a single thread. Soft syrup will not set the slab, and hard syrup makes it brittle.
Chef’s Note
Each square comes to about 155 kcal, with 2.2 g protein, 18.3 g carbs, 8.2 g fat and 1.1 g fibre; the ghee carries nearly all the fat and the sugar brings most of the carbs. The crumb, not the syrup, is what you are tasting, so roast it patiently.
Per serving (approx.): 155 kcal, protein 2.2 g, carbs 18 g, fat 8.2 g, fibre 1.1 g. Computed from IFCT 2017 / USDA values for the listed quantities. Measures: 1 cup = 240 ml, 1 tbsp = 15 ml, 1 tsp = 5 ml.
Happy Cooking
!!
ByCOWBERRY
Sep 01, 2026
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