Langcha

Langcha (also Lyangcha) is a Bengali sweet made by deep-frying an elongated dough of milk solids, wheat flour, and other ingredients, and then soaking it in sugar syrup. The surface fries to a deep brown, and the sweet liquid soaks into the inside. It is known as a specialty of Saktigarh in West Bengal, India, and can be found at roadside sweet shops.

Langcha at a sweet shop in Saktigarh (2014, Biswarup Ganguly / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0). The downscaled version from the source is used, with no changes to the content after retrieval.

Some methods use khoya, made from cooked-down milk, or chhena, made by curdling milk and draining off the water. This is kneaded together with flour, shaped into cylinders, fried in oil, and soaked in syrup.

An Example Using Milk Powder, with Syrup Absorbed in Two Stages

In a method that a Saktigarh shop owner described in an interview, wheat flour and milk powder are combined with a leavening agent, water, and ghee, and the dough is left to rest. It is shaped into cylinders and fried, simmered in sugar syrup, and then soaked for several hours in cold syrup flavored with rose or cardamom. A different item filled with khoya is also sold, so customers can choose what is inside even at the same shop.

Roadside Shops and Sweets Taken Home as Gifts

At shops along the highway, passengers from buses and cars stopping for a break drop in and take home boxes of sweets as gifts for their families. While old shops remain in the Saktigarh market, many shops are concentrated in the Amra area along the national highway. A person connected with the local sweet sellers’ association says that the shops moved there after the national highway was built.

Sweet shops along the national highway in Saktigarh (2017, Biswarup Ganguly / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0). The downscaled version from the source is used, with no changes to the content after retrieval.

Like the round gulab jamun, langcha is fried dough soaked in syrup, but it stands out for its elongated shape. A source written in Bengali also mentions the langcha of Kaliganj in Jhenaidah District, Bangladesh, so the name is not limited to a single shop or place.

Two Legends About the Name

One story holds that the name comes from what people called a confectioner who walked with a limp. According to the legend, a woman from the royal family of Krishnanagar who married into a family in Burdwan craved a sweet from her hometown while she was pregnant. She could not remember the sweet’s name and described it by the way the confectioner who made it walked, so the confectioner was sought out and summoned to Burdwan. In another story, told by a Saktigarh shop owner, the name comes from a British man with a limp who was fond of the sweet. Both are legends, and no source confirming the origin of the name has been found.

Glossary