Winter means a festival of pitha. The sweet taste of the many rice cakes made with date juice or date molasses lingers long after eating. But winter pitha is not only about date molasses: there are many other kinds, and one of the most tempting is kheersa pitha. Made with a filling of kheer, it has a taste that is hard to forget. Here is the recipe.

For the filling:

• 1 kg liquid milk
• half a cup of powdered milk
• half a cup of condensed milk
• a pinch of ground cardamom

For the dough:

• 2 cups of rice flour
• a little salt
• water as needed

For the filling, first boil the milk. Then add all the other filling ingredients and stir. Keep stirring until the mixture thickens. When it turns sticky, take it off the heat and let it cool.

Now make a dough with the rice flour, as you would for roti. Shape it into thick rounds, put some of the kheer filling inside and seal the edges. Deep-fry over a low flame. When the pitha turn brown, lift them out of the oil and serve the kheersa pitha hot.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.