Maavilakku is an edible lamp made with rice flour and jaggery in auspicious occasions. Detailed instructions on how to make maa vilakku with tips, full video.
With Aadi month just couple of weeks away, I thought of sharing the process of making maavilakku mavu that I shot last year, in my drafts. We make maavilakku mavu at my in-laws place just once in an year while we visit the temple in the month of Chithirai or Aadi. For past few years, I wanted to learn this process so that I can follow the tradition later on. Only twice I have tried this along my mami. Usually I never notice how it is made. My mami also make it in other relative house where we stay before visiting temple, so never had opportunity to learn or I ignored.

My mom recently gives a tip to prepare the mixture in a easy way, where the fresh rice flour and the powdered jaggery is mixed and left overnight, the next day, if we mix in the temple, the consistency is just right and made dough easily. We just have to add ghee if needed in this.

Otherwise, the regular procedure is prepare flour in the morning, Take flour and jaggery separately and mix both there with ghee as needed and made dough. This way, the dough won't come together easily, so have to put a bit of effort to make balls and hold shape.

I know it's been a week since I posted any recipes in my blog as I was on a short trip to India with a tight schedule as usual. And I did shooting few episodes for Puthuyugam Tv (Tamil Channel) Rusikkalam vanga cooking show. It is aired every Monday 1 PM and 6:30 PM, also uploaded in their youtube channel. Below is my first episode🙂

Maavilakku recipe

Recipe Cuisine: Indian | Recipe Category: Sweet
Prep Time: 2 hrs | Cook time: 0 mins | Serves: 4 | Author: Raks anand

Click here for cup measurements

Maavilakku is an edible lamp made with rice flour and jaggery in auspicious occasions. Detailed instructions on how to make maa vilakku with tips, full video.
Maavilakku recipe

Ingredients

Rice, pacharisi - 1 cup
Jaggery, powdered - 3/4 cup to 1 cup
Cardamom - 2
Dry ginger powder - 1/4 tsp
Ghee as needed

Method:

Soak rice for minimum one hour or upto 3 hrs. Drain water and spread in a clean white cloth for 10 mins.
Grind this rice in mixer to a fine flour and sieve.
Take the rice flour in a mixing bowl, add well powdered jaggery to it and mix well.
Add cardamom powder, dry ginger powder, 1 tbsp ghee and keep mixing.
The jaggery will melt in hand heat and you will be able to make a dough.
Make a ball and place over clean banana leaf. Make a dent on top, decorate with kumkum and add ghee. Place a wick and lit the lamp.

Notes

Do not let rice flour dry too much, keep in a closed container, gently pressed.
Ghee can be adjusted so that it helps in binding the flour.
After 1/2 cup jaggery, add jaggery carefully so that we don't add more.
The rolled ball should be stiff in order to hold its shape for long time. So stop kneading accordingly.
Adding more ghee, jaggery will make the dough ball too loose and wont hold shape.
As a trouble shooting, you can put the whole mixture in a new round lunch box, lit the lamp as such in it, instead of making balls.
In our family, we make few number of maavilakku so we make more quantity.
Make sure jaggery is powdered well. Usually we grate using aruvamanai or grater. You can also break without lumps. Paagu vellam gets easily melt.
You can use naatu sakkarai for easy shortcut.
Use the coarse remains in the sieve while grinding rice in the consecutive next batches. Do not discard anything.

Tags: maavilakku, maa vilakku mavu

Step by step pictures:

Soak rice for minimum one hour or upto 3 hrs. Drain water and spread in a clean white cloth for 10 mins.
Grind this rice in mixer to a fine flour and sieve.
Take the rice flour in a mixing bowl, add well powdered jaggery to it and mix well. Add cardamom powder, dry ginger powder, 1 tbsp ghee and keep mixing. The mixture should not be too wet like chapati dough, it should be on dry side so that you need effort to roll and hold it's shape. If it is wet more like a dough, it won't hold shape later.
The jaggery will melt in hand heat and you will be able to make a dough.
Make a ball and place over clean banana leaf. Make a dent on top, decorate with kumkum and add ghee. Place a wick and lit the lamp.

Place the dough lamp always on a clean banana leaf, in front of God. We draw kolam in front of it. Offer vetrilai paaku, banana, incense stick, break coconut.
maavilakku-maavu