Bal Mithai

Bal Mithai (बाल मिठाई) is a milk sweet popular in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, especially in Almora and the Kumaon region. A mixture cooked down until brown is cut into squares and coated on the outside with white sugar granules. The dark center beneath the white sugar granules is made by further cooking khoya, milk that has been reduced by boiling.

Setting reduced milk and coating it with sugar granules

Khoya is a concentrated dairy product obtained by heating milk in a pan to reduce its water content. During heating, the milk solids that stick to the pan are scraped back in, and the milk is cooked down while being stirred. For Bal Mithai, that khoya is cooked further with sugar and finished as a deep brown sweet.

The reduced mixture is spread on a plate or in a mold to cool. Once it has set firmly enough to cut, it is divided into small squares. Next, the pieces are coated with sugar syrup and the white sugar granules are applied to the outside. Because the sugar granules are added afterward to the reduced-milk center, when you bite into it you first feel the fine granules on the surface, then taste the dense texture of the reduced center and its rich milk flavor.

Some products are made with added cocoa. An example also appears in a recipe (ingredient proportions and method) from Uttarakhand Open University. The basic description from Almora district shows a form in which khoya is roasted and simmered until brown. While the basic color comes from heating milk and sugar, there are also formulations that alter the flavor with cocoa.

How it differs from Almora’s “chocolate”

At Almora’s sweet shops, a milk sweet called “chocolate” is sold alongside Bal Mithai. The sweet shop Heera Singh Jeewan Singh carries on Bal Mithai, coated in white sugar granules, and chocolate, cooked to a dark color and cut into thick pieces, as separate products. Both are local reduced-milk sweets, and the name does not mean the same thing as a commercial chocolate bar.

Also, Singori, from the same region, wraps khoya in a cone of leaf. Bal Mithai covers its surface with white sugar granules, Singori adds the aroma of the leaf, and the dark milk sweet has no sugar granules: even within a single sweet shop’s lineup, how far the milk is cooked and what is used on the outside vary.

From bazaar sweet to a specialty to take home

Almora’s Lal Bazaar holds layers of history of sweet shops that work with khoya. A name often cited as the person who popularized the present form of Bal Mithai is Joga Lal Shah. His shop’s sweets are said to have spread its name between the 19th and 20th centuries. Rather than having a single, established year of invention, its history is tied to the town’s artisans and the histories of its shops.

Heera Singh Jeewan Singh, too, has carried on Bal Mithai and chocolate over a shop history with records dating from 1887. Today the shop makes sweets in Haldwani as well as Almora, and local milk sweets also go into sweet boxes for weddings and festivals. The trade of taking sweets home by the box can also be seen in Nainital and in Choti Haldwani in the foothills. A travelogue about visiting the town’s sweet shops also records a small shop selling out its day’s stock in a short time. Cut into small pieces, packed in boxes and coated in white sugar granules, the sweet has also become a local taste that travelers bring home.

Bal Mithai coated in white sugar granules. The contrast between the brown milk sweet and the white coating is visible. Photo: vkumar. Image source／CC BY 3.0.

Glossary