It’s the season to indulge your sweet tooth… Enjoy a slice of tradition from Goa on Christmas with a platter of 15 desserts you can make at home too.
As Advent begins, Catholic homes across Goa start their preparations for Christmas. Chief among them being the food — especially sweets — to be served on the day and sent to relatives and friends. This Christmas platter of sweets is called Kuswar or Consoada. It’s a pretty tray, stacked with colourful, sugary confections and treats, many of them laden with coconut and jaggery. The star is the Christmas cake, a decadent, dark cake, studded with alcohol-soaked fruit.
Here are some of the other items on the Goan Christmas platter.
1. Bathk
The other cake that occupies the Christmas table, this coconut and semolina cake is a special treat. It is like any other cake: Dense, moist, and crumbly, but made without flour. Bathk or Batica typically has coconut, butter, rava, sugar, baking soda, and nutmeg or cardamom for flavouring.
2. Bolinhas
This tea-time favourite is a cookie made of coconut, rava, egg yolks, sugar, and butter, with vanilla or cardamom for flavouring. The batter is rested for a few hours, then shaped, and baked.
3. Bebinca
Goa’s most famous sweet is a multi-layered dessert (some say cake). It is made with egg yolks, flour, ghee, coconut milk, and the layers are baked separately. The art form lies in making those layers perfectly symmetrical. Some people also make a sweet potato version, or a potato version that isn’t layered, while some also add colours to the layers.
4. Doce
The diamond-shaped fudge-like sweet has a dry crust and soft interior. It is made with chana dal, coconut and jaggery, which is cooked till ready (the mixture leaves the sides of the vessel). It is left to cool and then cut into squares or diamonds and sometimes scored on the top with a fork.
5. Dodol
The dark, rich pudding-like sweet is a staple at Goan festivities. It consists of three simple ingredients: Coconut milk, stirred with madachem god (black palm jaggery), and rice flour. The trick to a good Dodol (and most other Christmas sweets) lies in the stirring. Here, it is a long and continuous process that is necessary to avoid lumps and avert the mixture from burning. Once it reaches the desired thickness, the mixture is left to cool, and then sliced. Some add cashew nuts slices as decoration.
6. Gons
They are spiderwebs of the most delicious kind. Gons or Teias de Aranhas (cobwebs or spiderwebs) are essentially candied tender coconut. Strips of the soft coconut meat (soaked in water or coconut water) are cooked in sugar till it thickens to a syrupy consistency. A few of these strips — now stuck together — are delicately removed and placed on baking paper and teased to look like cobwebs. This sweet is typically found at Christmas, served on small bits of baking paper or doilies.
7. Jujubes
The chewy, artificially flavoured jelly cubes dusted with sugar, are a big hit with kids. Jujubes are a combination of gelatine, sugar, lime juice, water, some flavouring, and edible colours. The gelatine is cooked down with sugar and water till it is thick, allowed to set, cut into shapes, and dusted with sugar.
8. Kokad
This coconut-heavy sweet is made with semolina and coconut. It has a crunchy coating and soft insides. Rava, sugar, and coconut are stirred together until cooked. The mixture is then kept to cool and harden, then cut into shapes.
9. Kormolas
This deep-fried sweet looks like flower buds. It is made with a dough of maida, eggs, sugar, and coconut milk, cut into squares, twisted at the ends to make a conch shell, and then fried.
10. Kulkuls
No one can eat just one. Kulkuls are a labour-intensive sweet. Locally sometimes called kidyo (or worms), they are made with maida, rava, milk, coconut milk, and sugar. The dough is kneaded, broken into tiny pieces, and then rolled out on a fork or comb to form little curls, which are then deep fried. Some add a dusting of sugar on top or a glaze, or food colours.
11. Milk cream
This delicate cashew nut and milk fudge melts in the mouth. As with the Dodol, the trick lies in stirring milk continuously on a low flame with cashew nut powder, and sugar. The continuous stirring is to ensure the mixture doesn’t burn. Once ready, moulds are used to give it different shapes, though seashells are the most common.
12. Marzipans
It forms the fun part of the sweets’ tray, along with Jujubes. Marzipans are almond sweets (some use cashew nuts, which are cheaper) — essentially almond meal, sugar, and egg whites — given different shapes using moulds.
13. Neureo
These deep-fried crescent-shaped sweets (think karanji or gujias) have a flaky pastry covering and a sweet stuffing. The stuffing is typically coconut, palm jaggery, and dried fruits or gram, moong flour and powdered sugar, or just rava and sugar with dried fruits.
14 Perada
Perada or guava cheese is a chewy, fudgy, sticky sweet. Guava pulp is mixed with sugar, water, and lime, and stirred till it thickens. Once its ready, it is kept to cool, and then cut into squares or triangles. Good guava cheese is thick and holds its shape and can’t be spread like jam.
15. Pinagr
It looks like a croquette but is a sweet made with rice and coconut. Rice is lightly roasted, then powdered, and added to a mixture of palm jaggery, coconut and cardamom. The cooked mixture is shaped into small cylinders and lightly dusted with some rice powder.
Get your traditional Christmas Goan sweets here
- The Goan Kitchen in Margao. Call 8007762121.
- Nezita is a Woman Empowerment Initiative in Panjim. Call 9404143593. Last date: December 10.
- Home chef in Cansaulim. Call 8451970095. Last date: December 16.
- E’Delicious in Porvorim. Call 7620998918. Delivery charge extra. Last date: December 5.
- Renee’s Christmas Goodies. Delivery to Panjim, Porvorim, and Margao on orders above Rs 2,000. Call 9370531275.
- Cakes, Bakes & More by Josephine, Sangolda. WA 9112856228. Delivery on orders above Rs 1,000. Last date: December 18.
- Firlyn Furtado, Porvorim. Call 7038149080.
- Irene’s Culinary Studio, Porvorim. Call/WA 7517594465. Last date: December 15 (pick up on December 22/23).
- Baker Boy in Olaulim. WA 8805853953/ 9923079085. Last date: December 15.
- Bake My Day in Colva. Call 7030355112. Pick up between December 17–23. Last date: December 10.
- True Flavors in Margao. Call 9762338501/7420910991. Last date: December 18.
- Charlotte’s Creative Concepts in Porvorim. Call/ WA 9607022805. Delivery across North Goa. Last date: December 15.
- Mystique in Guirim. Call 08329806057/ 9623039320. Last date: December 12.
- Adeline’s Touch in Chicalim. Call 9823933127. Last date: December 10.
- Cake Alchemy in Curtorim. Call/WA 9665021993/9975041997.
- Sinful Treats in Mapusa. Call/WA 7798609859.
- Rosie’s Homemade Christmas Sweets in North Goa. Pick up from Siolim, Porvorim, Baga. Call 9823553024/7758820912. Last date: December 18.
- Jacque’s Bakes in Merces. Call 9921856902.
All things sweet!
- Merilee Me in Nuvem for mince tarts, blueberry frangipane tarts, pudding, and cookies. Pick up in Nuvem. Call 9623218326.
- Saint Cloud Patisserie in Sangolda for macarons, truffles, cookies (including lebkuchen and gingerbread) and some gluten free options as well. Call 8600600001. Last date: December 17.
- Marnoro Munchies in Arpora for loaf cakes, cookies, pies, fudge, and marzipan. Call 9607545253. Delivery across Goa using Hungryfi. Last date: December 15.
- Marlene’s Tasty Treats in Panjim for empadinhas, puffs, jam tarts, almond cake, and pasteis de nata. Call 9890993700. Delivery charge extra. Last date: December 17.
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