Amla candy is a super delicious and tongue tickling Sun-dried candied gooseberry which has all the benefits of the Amla fruit . Sweet, sour and mildly spicy in taste, this amla candy is just perfect for the fussy eaters and one of the best way of preserving the gooseberries to reap its benefits all year round. Amla candy is best to conclude a meal, as it helps in digestion and serves as a good mouth freshener. It is also best remedy for nausea and travel sickness.
What goes into this Amla Candy ?
Amla candy is a Sun-dried candied gooseberry. This vegan and gluten-free amla candy can be easily made at home using just 2 ingredients Amla (Indian Gooseberry) and Sugar. No artificial color or preservative is used here. To add flavor and make it more healthier i have used dry ginger powder as well. You can even add black salt or cumin powder as a variation.
Making of Amla Candy
Fresh Indian Gooseberries are used in making this Amla candy. Select a fruit that is medium to large in size, pale green in colour with shiny skin, and without any blemishes or bruises. Washed berries are
cooked in boiling water for a while. There are 2 reasons for this step. One is to get rid of the bitter juices and the second is soften them, so that the seed can be easily removed and the gooseberries can be cut into segments. Sugar and dry ginger powder is added to the slices so obtained and they are set aside for 3 days, during which the sugar melts and the gooseberry slices get soaked up in the syrup. The slices are strained from the syrup and sun dried for 2-3 days or until all the juice dries up. Finally the candy is coated with little powdered sugar. (This last step is optional) The reserved syrup can be further cooked and reduced to give the Amla sherbet which is another delicious way of having this super fruit.
Shelf Life of Amla Candy
Sugar acts as a preservative in this Sun-dried amla candy. No artificial colour or preservative is used in this recipe. A well Sun-dried amla candy can be stored for months or even up to a year in an air tight container at room temperature.
Many ways of using Amla Candy
Rich in vitamin C, this amla candy is a great way of making the kids eat this super fruit making it the only candy which can make both kids and mommies equally happy :) Amla candy is best to conclude a meal, as it helps in digestion and serves as a good mouth freshener. It is also best remedy for nausea and travel sickness. Apart from this amla candy can be had at any time of the day to satisfy some sweet tongue tickling cravings. It can be used in cakes and desserts as fruit candy for crunch and flavour.
Among all the seasons ,Winter is my favourite. One of the many reasons for which is the abundance of juicy fruits and vegetables during this time of the year. It is a visual delight to see the local markets flooded with colorful fresh Winter produce. Amla or Indian gooseberry is one among the winter fruits loaded with countless health benefits.
Amla as a Superfood
Amla is an amazing seasonal fruit found in abundance in the Winter season in India. Being packed with Vitamin C and a great source of antioxidants, amla or the Indian Gooseberry contains numerous nutrients that actually help you live a longer and healthier life. It can definitely keep a number of diseases at bay as it is packed with compounds like polyphenols, minerals like iron and zinc and vitamins like carotenes and vitamin B complex. Amla has eight times more vitamin C than an orange, twice the antioxidant power of acai berry and around 17 times that of a pomegranate. The humble Indian gooseberry, commonly known as amla, truly deserves its super food status. Click here to know more about the health benefits of including Amla in your daily diet.
When in season, I try to include fresh amla in our daily diet in the form of juice and amla chutney, and to enjoy the benefits of this super fruit throughout the year, i make sure i preserve it in the form of amla jam, amla pickle, and amla supari (mouth freshener) apart from this amla candy.
This is an old post which i had published in 2016 during my initial blogging days. I have updated this post today with some new pictures and written content but have not changed the recipe. I have many such old posts where the photography is dull and the recipe is not up to the mark. Such posts need to be updated with new pictures and written content. Thanks to Renu, my dear friend and a fellow blogger who came up with a Facebook group, Foodies_Redoing Old Posts as an initiative, wherein we bloggers can update our old posts with either new pictures or written content or both every two weeks. This is my 12th entry into this event (27th December)
You can see two pictures below. The first one is my earlier pic and the later one is the current one. You can make out the colour change of the candy. The reason is that, this time i have not coated the Sun-dried amla candy in powdered sugar. Rest of the recipe is same. So, let's get started.
Preparation Time : 6-7 days ( including the time for Sun-drying)
Cooking time : 2 minutes
Serves: 1 1/2 cup amla candy
Ingredients:
- ½ kilo grams of Amla / Indian Gooseberry ( 18-20 medium sized
Amla)
- 300 grams sugar
- 1 tablespoon of dry Ginger powder / Saunth Powder
Method:
- Wash the gooseberries thoroughly in water and pat dry with a kitchen towel.
In a big sauce pan bring 3-4 cups of water to rolling boil.
2. Add the gooseberries to boiling water and allow to cook for 2
minutes.
3. Put off the flame . Cover the sauce pan and allow the gooseberries to remain in the hot water for 10 minutes. The color of the gooseberries changes from green to yellow.
4. Strain the water and collect the Gooseberries. (The water can be used to wash hair).
5. When cool enough to handle , cut along the striations of the gooseberry with a knife to get 6 slices from each piece. Discard the seed.
6. Place all the gooseberry slices in a big vessel. Reserve 2
tablespoon of sugar and add the remaining over them. We will powder the
reserved sugar and will use it in the end to coat the candy.
Add 1 tablespoon of dry ginger powder and mix everything
very well by tossing the gooseberries in the container. Set aside the container for 3 days.
7. After one day , we can see the sugar has dissolved in the gooseberry juices and the slices of gooseberries float in the sugary syrup. Stir it and keep
covered.
8. On the third day the gooseberry slices soak the sugary syrup and
become heavy and settle to the bottom.
9. Strain the gooseberries from the syrup and reserve the syrup. The syrup can be used to make Sherbet.
10. Spread individual gooseberry slices on a plate or a plastic sheet
and sundry for 2-3 days.
11. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar over the candy and mix well.
12. Healthy and delicious amla candy is ready to be popped in. Store it in air tight container and enjoy.
13. To make the sherbet , boil the reserved syrup from step 9 for 10 minutes or until it reduces to half its original volume.
14. Let the concentrated syrup cool down and fill it in clean, dry and sterilised bottle. Refrigerate the bottle and use as per requirement. Add 3 tablespoon of this concentrate to a glass of water. Stir well and enjoy a refreshing and delicious Amla drink.
Notes:
- Select fresh , unblemished gooseberries which are large in
size and are slightly yellow in color as such fruit is juicy and less sour and
hence require less amount of sugar to make the candy.
- Do not over cook the amla as on doing so the amla will lose
nutrition, turn mushy and will not retain proper shape on cutting.
- Along with sugar and dry ginger powder, black salt and roasted cumin powder can also be
added to the cooked gooseberry slices as variation. The color of the candy will
be brown in this case.
- Sprinkling sugar increases the shelf life and makes the candies gooseberries non sticky. You can skip that step if desired.
- The candy is very addictive and you can
trust my words and make a big batch while the fruit is in season.
I hope a few of you would love to try out this recipe. If you do so, feel free to share your feedback with us in the form of likes and comments in the comment section below this post. All your suggestions are also more than welcome. If you like my work and feel it is worth following, do hit the follow button at the top right corner of this blog. Your appreciation means a lot to me. For more recipes and new updates follow us on social media.
For more Indian Gooseberry recipes, do check my following posts
