Thandai Peda (with Gulkand filling)!

Name: Thandai Peda (with Gulkand filling)!
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 17 min
Total time: 52 min
Ingredients: 250 grams mawa (1 1/4 cups ); 2 tablespoons thandai powder; 100 grams granulated white sugar ( 1/2 cup ); 2 tablespoons whole milk ( 30 ml , or use any milk of choice); 6 teaspoons gulkand

By Manali Singh

Published Mar 07, 2025

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These delectable Thandai Pedas are infused with the flavors of spices like saffron, cardamom, rose, peppercorn and filled with aromatic gulkand. Made with only a few ingredients, these pedas will add more colors to your Holi celebrations!

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This Thandai peda recipe uses my homemade thandai powder to make a fudgy peda infused with saffron, sweet cardamom, floral rose petals and a slight kick from the peppercorns. Filled with gulkand (rose petal jam), this is the perfect little treat to make for the festival of Holi or any other Indian celebration! Plus they need only 15 minutes of cook time!

5 pedas served on a blue plate with more pedas placed in the background

The vibrant and colorful festival of Holi is incomplete without the refreshing Thandai and mawa filled flaky gujiyas. I remember all the gujiya making marathons at my home a few days before Holi. And then we would enjoy them hot with a glass of chilled Thandai or soft and fluffy dahi bhalle on the side. Ahh, the thought of all this makes my mouth water.

Now, home away from home, I still make all the holi specials and every year I make a quick dessert with my easy homemade thandai powder. While traditional thandai involves soaking of all the spices and then grinding, the thandai powder is a quick way to get your thandai fix. Over the years, I have shared many desserts using this powder, from the crispy thandai cookies to the elegant thandai cake jars. This time around, I used it to make these thandai pedas and filled them with gulkand (rose petal preserve) to make them even more delectable. Make sure to have your thandai powder ready before you start making this recipe.

Important Tips Before Making Pedas

These pedas aur fudgy not chewy and that’s the way it should be. Here are few things to keep in mind while making these peda.

Cook on low heat stirring continuously. Do not cook this mixture on high heat, it will burn quickly.
You have to cook just until the right stage. It took me 15 minutes of cooking on low heat to reach the correct stage where it was leaving the sides of the pan and had that molten lava like consistency. It might take you less or more time depending on thickness of your pan and intensity of the heat.
If you overcook the mixture, the pedas will turn chewy and dry.
After transferring the mixture to parchment paper, let it cool down for 30 minutes. If you are unable to shape the mixture after it has cooled down, put the mixture back on heat and cook on low for 2 to 3 minutes more. Then let it cool down again and shape the pedas.

Let’s Make These Thandai Peda!

Start by roasting mawa in a pan on medium heat. Stir continuously so that it roasts evenly. Roast for around 2 to 3 minutes, it’s consistency will change and it will liquid-y. We are not looking for any color change here.

mawa being roasted in a a pan with a blue color spatula — Add mawa into the pan on medium heat

mawa turns into liquidy consistency as it's being roasted — Roast for around 2 minutes, it will become liquidy

To that roasted mawa now add homemade thandai powder, sugar and milk. You can adjust the quantity of sugar to taste, add less if you prefer your peda to be less sweet. Mix everything together and set the heat to low. The mixture will turn super thin.

sugar and thandai powder being added to mawa in a pan — Add the sugar, thandai powder and milk

a blue color spatula mixing everything in a pan — Start cooking the mixture on low heat

Stir continuously and cook the mixture on low heat. After cooking for around 15 minutes, the mixture will leave the sides of the pan and will have a molten lava-like consistency. Stop cooking at this point else your pedas will turn chewy. This time may vary depending on the intensity of heat and thickness of your pan, but keep an eye after 12 minutes of cooking. It can take you 2 minutes more or 2 minutes less. Transfer the mixture from the pan to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and let it cool for around 30 minutes. If you don’t have parchment paper, simply grease a plate with oil and transfer the mixture to it.

spatula showing how mixture is leaving sides of the pan — Mixture leaving the sides of the pan

yellow color mixture transferred to parchment paper — Remove mixture from heat and let it cool for 30 mins

After the mixture has cooled down, start making the pedas. Take a small ball of around 25 grams from the mixture and roll it into a ball. With you thumb make an indentation in the center, make sure it’s deep enough so that gulkand doesn’t ooze out when you fill it in. Fill it with 1/2 teaspoon of gulkand and then bring the ends together to seal the edges. Then roll into a round shape again making sure none of the gulkand is oozing out. The flatten it out a little with your palms. Make all pedas similarly.

peda being filled with the help of a spoon — Fill the peda with gulkand

hands pressing the peda to seal it from both sides — Seal the peda well so that none of the gulkand leaks out

Your peda is ready at this point but to make it look pretty, I used a mooncake mold to shape them. Insert the round peda into the mold and press it. Then release from the top and it will have this beautiful design on top. Garnish with a dried rose petal and few saffron strands.

mixture being pressed inside a mooncake mold — Roll it with hands or use a mooncake mold to give it a design

pair of hands holding a peda which is decorated with a rose petal — Garnish with dried rose petals and a few strands of saffron

Storage: I recommend consuming these pedas within 2 days. They taste best when consumed fresh. You can keep them in the fridge for 5 days.

Not a fan of gulkand? Fill them with nuts or just skip the filling!