Khashtak

Khashtak (also Hashtak) is a sweet from Uzbekistan made by filling dried apricots with nuts and other ingredients. The apricot flesh serves as a kind of outer skin, and walnuts or almonds are placed where the pit used to be. Without boiling sugar or baking a dough, it brings together the sweet-tart flavor of dried fruit and the richness and crunch of nuts in a single bite.

A simple form with a single piece of walnut inside is known from markets and elsewhere, but the name khashtak is not limited to fruit and walnuts alone. In Burchmulla, in the Bostanlyk District of Tashkent Region, a version with almonds, raisins and honey has been handed down. Even a sweet that seems to use few ingredients carries differences in combination passed down locally.

Filling the space left by the pit with something else

In the Burchmulla method, a dried apricot is cut partway open and the pit removed, then almonds or walnuts, raisins and a little honey are put inside and the fruit is closed. As long as the apricot is not cut fully into two pieces, the flesh can wrap around the filling. Because it keeps the shape of the fruit itself, the structure you experience when eating it differs from sweets in which the outer part and the filling are crushed together and rolled into balls.

The apricot forms a soft outer layer that is easy to bite through, and the nuts become a firm core. Raisins, as small dried fruits, fill the gaps, and honey adds sweetness. It is a combination that layers another fruit and nuts inside a single kind of fruit. Whereas the walnut-only form emphasizes the presence of one large nut, the form with raisins and honey brings small ingredients together inside.

The apricot pit also contains a kernel, but the almonds and walnuts placed in the space left after removing the pit in this sweet are a separate ingredient. It is neither a sweet eaten with the pit left inside in its shell nor one in which the flesh is removed and only the kernel is eaten. Looking inside the opened flesh shows what has been used as the filling.

A local method using sun-dried fruit

In Burchmulla and nearby Khumsan, almonds are used in everyday life for sweets and baked goods. For khashtak in this area, drying the apricots in the sun is highly valued. This is distinguished from finishing the fruit with a dryer or heat, and fruit dried without sulfur-based treatment is darker in color than industrially dried apricots that keep a bright orange color.

This sun-drying condition is valued as part of the local method. Products made with bright-looking dried apricots also exist, so it cannot be assumed from the name alone that the same drying method was used. The character of khashtak depends not only on the filling but also on how the outer fruit was dried.

The local almonds used for khashtak also faced a risk that the trees and native strains would decline because of felling for fuel. In 2007, Slow Food and others began surveying and conserving native almonds in Bostanlyk, and in 2009 a Slow Food local community group was formed in Burchmulla and Khumsan. These efforts protect the ingredients of a fruit-filled sweet from the stage of the trees in orchards and on the mountains.

From home handwork to the markets of Tashkent

Khashtak in Burchmulla is made by local residents and is also carried to markets in Tashkent. It is also taken as a gift to households that are hosting guests. Fruit dried for storage is not only an ingredient to eat as it is; the extra step of filling it with nuts makes it a gift to bring when visiting.

In December 2019, a khashtak-making competition was held in Burchmulla, and villagers judged the pieces made by confectioners. A local school principal organized the event, and teachers, students and forestry staff also took part. In addition to khashtak in homes and markets, that day became an occasion for the makers to show their confectionery skills to the people of the village.

Local records from Burchmulla include an account that explains khashtak as meaning “seven ingredients” and says that four are used in the present-day method. However, this is not an independent, older linguistic source that confirms the etymology, nor a record showing three lost ingredients. The clue to its present form lies in how apricots, nuts, raisins and honey are actually wrapped together.

The structure that uses apricot flesh as a wrapper. Original diagram by Sweetlore. Based on one example from Burchmulla; it does not show the actual size of the fruit or ingredients, or the proportions used in every region.

Glossary