Aluwa

Aluwa is a Sri Lankan sweet made by combining roasted rice flour with treacle or sugar syrup, flattening the mixture and cutting it into pieces. Versions made with palm treacle have a deep color and sweetness, and some methods also add cashew nuts or spices.

Binding roasted flour with a sweet liquid

The rice flour is roasted first, then combined with a sweetened liquid and worked into a dough. Once it has become a thick dough, it is spread flat and cut, and the surface is dusted with roasted flour. The flour is dusted on to keep the cut pieces from sticking to one another. The treacle binds the fragrant roasted rice flour together.

In one cooking article, a little of the syrup made by boiling sugar and water is set aside first, and roasted rice flour is gradually added to the rest. If the dough becomes too stiff, the reserved syrup is added to adjust it. When the dough is spread flat and cut before it sets, then dusted with flour, it becomes diamond-shaped or square sweets.

The flavor changes depending on the ingredients added. Aluwa with cashew nuts is also called kaju aluwa, and some versions use cardamom. There are also examples that add sesame seeds, roasted coconut, black pepper or dried ginger.

Sri Lankan-born journalist Jinara Rathnayake remembers the aluwa her mother made at New Year. According to her, when roasted rice flour was mixed into warmed kithul treacle and crushed cashew nuts and cardamom were added, a toasty aroma spread through the kitchen. Rathnayake’s mother would flatten the dough and cut it into pieces on the diagonal.

A pilgrimage sweet and old records

Along with aluwa, aggala, made by combining rice flour with a sweetener and rolling it into balls, is also well known. A Sri Lankan cookery collection also mentions a tradition that the two sweets are eaten on pilgrimages to Sri Pada. The flat, cut sweet and the rolled one differ in shape, and the explanation that aluwa developed from aggala survives as a tradition.

Robert Knox, who wrote about the island of Ceylon as it was in the 17th century, described a sweet made with roasted rice, jaggery and spices, and also mentioned a similar flat, diamond-shaped sweet called “Alloways.” The name and shape are reminiscent of today’s aluwa, but it cannot be stated with certainty that the sweet of that time was identical to all present-day aluwa.

Patterns left by wooden molds

The Colombo National Museum also holds wooden molds used to press patterns into aluwa dough. They bear carved square and floral patterns and were used as tools for decorating the surface of the sweet. This shows that, rather than only being spread flat and cut, aluwa was also made by adding patterns with a mold.

Among the rice sweets on the same holiday table, kavum is made by frying a treacle-laced dough, and kokis by coating a mold with thin batter and frying it. Aluwa, made by kneading roasted flour with a sweetener and cutting it, takes on a form different from both.

Glossary