Gift These 7 DIY

Raksha Bandhan Sweets

To Your Sugar-Loving Sibling That Are Easy On The Pocket

Quick Summary

Raksha Bandhan sweets need not be laddoos, sandesh, or gulab jamuns, nor do they need to be luxurious chocolates, a voucher for fine dining, or anything expensive. Brownie points if your brother or sister has a sweet tooth and is easy to please; in that case, go DIY and gift them something handmade and sweet. It could be anything from chocolate truffles to a jar of candy or fruit roll-ups that doesn't require you to turn on your oven and fret over a batch of burnt muffins or cake.

Deep Dive

Fruits, chocolates, and sugar can be a heady mix if you are thinking of going the DIY route for Raksha Bandhan sweets this year. Take into account what your sibling likes and go a little creative with the packaging, tie jars and boxes with a neat little bow or a heartfelt note, and fill those up with handmade chocolate barks, truffles, fruit leather, dessert syrups and more, all of which are of an indulgent nature and a perfect reminder of the love between siblings and cousins. A special day, after all, needs its own sweet treats, and nothing beats handmade edibles that are on the sweeter side.

1. Chocolate Truffles

Chocolate ganache is used to make chocolate truffles, made with melted chocolate of your choice. Pick dark chocolate if bitterness is not an issue, or milk chocolate to be on the safe side, and mix with heavy cream. For a silky texture, butter is often added to the mix, and once the mixture is no longer scalding hot, it is turned into balls. The heavy cream and the chocolate need to be heated separately, then the hot cream is added to the melted chocolate. You can add flavourings like vanilla essence to the bowl for a layered flavour. Make it special for Raksha Bandhan by rolling the freshly made chocolate balls in desiccated coconut, chocolate sprinkles, crushed candy, or other toppings to create truffles with different textures. 

2. Fruit Roll-Ups

This one needs the oven and is the perfect 3-ingredient dessert, or a 2-ingredient dessert if you skip the sugar. For the former, you need fruit to be just ripe, along with lemon juice and sugar, and for the latter, the fruit needs to be ripe, juicy and sweet, and all you need is lemon juice. The fruit of choice needs to be pureed first with the sugar, if using. Once the puree forms, add the lemon juice and mix again. Using a spatula, this fruit puree is spread across a parchment-lined baking tray. The fruit leather is then dehydrated in the oven for a couple of hours on the lowest heat setting. The parchment is peeled once done, then the fruit leather is cut into strips and rolled up.

3. Candied Fruit

Tanghulu has been trending lately, an artsy way of wrapping a sugar glaze around fruits of your choice. Pick small oranges or their segments, grapes, strawberries, kiwi slices, or something else, and put them on a skewer. Using a 2:1 sugar-to-water ratio, make the sugar syrup until it reaches an amber hue. The skewers with the fruit are then rolled in the hot syrup and immediately dunked in an ice bath to set them. You can do this activity with your sibling or prepare it on the day of Raksha Bandhan itself. 

4. Fudge

The perfect Raksha Bandhan gifts for a sister or brother do not need to be conventional; they can be trendy, like trying Dubai chocolate in the form of fudge. You need condensed milk, pistachio cream, milk chocolate, and cooked kataifi pastry. Mix the cooked kataifi with melted pistachio cream to make the pistachio layer. Make the fudge layer by mixing half of the melted chocolate with condensed milk, cooking it until it's thick. Layer this in a lined tin, let it sit, then layer the pistachio on top. Mix the remaining melted chocolate and condensed milk, then layer it over the pistachio layer and let it set. Cut into cubes and share with your siblings!

5. Dessert Sauces

Take into account what your brother or sister likes: coffee, strawberries, chocolate, and make a sauce or syrup out of it. For the sibling who loves their caffeine, a jar of coffee syrup is a great gift, and it takes just a handful of ingredients and a couple of minutes to make. For the sibling who loves everything caramel, making a caramel sauce is a good idea, with a salty edge added to elevate it into a salted caramel dessert sauce, perfect for pouring over pancakes or indulgent cakes. Just make sure you put the sauce in a decorative heat-proof jar, or cool the sauce before pouring it into the jar, decorate it and make it a special Raksha Bandhan sweet.

6. Chocolate Bark

Have a sibling who loves stuffed chocolate or any chocolate with solid bits in it? Then, for Raksha Bandhan sweets, make your own chocolate bark by melting chocolate of your choice, white, milk or dark chocolate and sprinkling chopped dry fruits or nuts like pistachios, almonds, walnuts, cashews, or a mix of them all. You can also choose to make the chocolate bark sweeter by adding crushed candy bits, pumpkin seeds, toffee bits, freeze-dried fruits like mangoes, strawberries or blueberries. Break the chocolate bark into chunks, put them in a jar or container, and decorate them for the special occasion. 

7. Turkish Delight

If you are looking for Raksha Bandhan sweets and have a Narnia fan in your family, then you might have seen your sibling salivating over Turkish delight that was given to Edmund by the White Witch, which ended up in him betraying his own siblings. The negativity aside, Turkish delight, called Lokum, is a gel-like candy made with starch and coated in powdered sugar. Something similar exists in India, called Karachi or Bombay Halwa, and you can easily make it at home and give it that snowy touch by rolling it in powdered sugar. Make sure you don’t forget to wrap it up well and gift it during Rakhi.

An Overview of the Raksha Bandhan Sweets

Raksha Bandhan Sweets Made Budget-Friendly

All of these sweets are perfect for Rakhi, and you can involve your sibling in making them unless you really want to surprise them with these sweet treats. From trending tanghulu that features a fruit in candy coating to Dubai chocolate fudge to chocolate bark, you can make so many things with a bit of creativity and little effort, all within a limited budget, if you have been baulking at the rising costs of chocolates and everything sweet in the market.