Taste & Create: Puff Pastry with Poornam Filling

*Taste & Create is an amazing monthly food blog event, created by my friend Nicole of For the Love of Food. Participants are paired up randomly, and each create a recipe from their partner's blog! It is so fun! Please join us.

The deadline to sign up is the 8th day of each month, email me at cowgirlmin07[at]gmail[dot]com if you're interested!

For the month of March, I was paired with Jayanthi of  Sizzling Veggies.  I am so embarrassed that I have let this go for so long.  I'm not trying to make excuses about it, I just had a lot going on and did not get it done.  I had originally planned on making Jayanthi's Cabbage Koftas in Malai Gravy or her Baked Bread Koftas in Spinach Gravy, and one day I will probably make both of those!  All of her recipes sound so wonderful.

When it came right down to it though, I ended up choosing her Puff Pastry with Poornam Filling.  I have a huge container of jaggery for which I am always looking for uses, and I am a sucker for coconut.  Add cardamom to the ingredient list, and you didn't have to ask me twice!

These are interesting...I think they are good, but I'm not a huge fan.  They are sort of like chewy caramel with coconut in pastry.  My mother-in-law and my oldest son LOVE them.  Mixed responses from a couple neighbors and the rest of the family.  Maybe they are an acquired taste if you don't absolutely love them the first time? Also, mine look nothing like Jayanthi's...follow the link to see what they are probably supposed to look like!  ;-)

Puff Pastry with Poornam Filling

1/3 cup jaggery
1/3 cup shredded coconut (I used raw dried coconut, perhaps the smaller shred of the sweetened coconut would have worked better?)
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
a pinch of cardamon powder
1 puff pastry sheet

Thaw frozen puff pastry sheet for 40 minutes at room temperature before starting this recipe.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper in case the poornam filling oozes out.

In a small pan, add jaggery powder with 2 tablespoons of water. Let the jaggery dissolve in the water and bring to a boil. Add cardamon powder and coconut and mix well. Let the jaggery and coconut filling thicken over medium-low heat.  I reduced until the liquid was almost gone.

Add sweetened condensed milk and mix well. Keep stirring until the poornam filling is thick and holds together.  You may want to reduce the heat during this step.

When pastry sheet has thawed, cut dough into circles. (not knowing exactly how big, I made mine about 3" diameter with a glass).  Roll the dough with a rolling pin (I flattened mine out with my fingers) and place a tablespoon of filling in the center.

Take two opposite ends of the circle and while holding this, pleat the entire outer part of the circle to form a shape of modakam.  (I have no idea what shape a modakam is, so I went by looking at Jayanthi's photos on her original post, see link above, and really just pleated around the outside to sort of hold in the filling)

Repeat steps 4 and 5 with other pastries. Jayanthi made 9 modakams with the given poornam filling measurements, I ended up with 11. 

 Bake the pastries in the oven till they turn golden brown, about 10 minutes.