Lapsi

Lapsi is an Indian sweet made by cooking wheat with ghee and sugar. It is popular in Gujarat and Rajasthan, and versions made with cracked wheat are called fada lapsi. Cracked wheat keeps the shape of its grains even when cooked soft, giving it a different bite from halwa made with smooth flour.

Roasting the cracked grains before cooking

Fada is wheat that has been cracked into small pieces. For lapsi, these grains are first roasted in ghee. Water or another liquid is then added, and the grains are cooked until no hard center remains. Both sugar and jaggery are used as sweeteners, and some versions add cardamom, nuts, coconut, or other ingredients.

Dry cracked wheat. Photo: Sanjay Acharya, 2006. Original image used (Source, CC BY-SA 3.0).

Sugarcane jaggery displayed at a market in Punjab, India. Photo: Giridhar Appaji Nag Y, 2007. Original image used (Source, CC BY 2.0).

Besides slow cooking in a pot, there are also methods that use a pressure cooker. In a recipe by the cook Renu Dalal, wheat roasted in ghee is combined with jaggery, spices, and water and cooked under pressure. On the other hand, some methods soften the wheat first and then add the sweetener, so there is more than one order in which ingredients are added.

Depending on the size of the grains and the amount of liquid, the result can be loose and separate or can hold together when scooped with a spoon. Rather than making a uniform mass as with flour-based sweets, the heat and sweetness are worked through each grain of wheat.

Lapsi made from flour and lapsi made from grains

The name lapsi is also used for kansar, which is made from coarse wheat flour. A family account from Saurashtra distinguishes the flour version, called lapsi or kansar, from the cracked-grain version, called fada lapsi.

In fada lapsi, where cracked wheat is roasted in ghee and then cooked in water, the grains remain separate even after cooking. The appearance of the grains in the finished dish differs from examples of kansar, in which coarse flour is steamed and broken apart.

A table that celebrates with wheat

Lapsi is a sweet made for family milestones such as weddings, births, and moving into a new home. In Gujarat, it is counted among the wheat dishes used for celebrations, alongside kansar and sheera. In some Rajasthani households, jaggery is dissolved in water, strained, and added to the roasted wheat. On celebration days, it is first offered to the household deity and then shared with family and guests while still warm.

It is not only a food for special occasions. A cooking school’s account of summer memories of visiting a grandmother’s home in Indore tells of eating lapsi for breakfast. With a generous garnish of nuts, an everyday dish can also become a celebratory sweet. At a children’s facility in Ahmedabad, fada lapsi made with cracked wheat and jaggery also appears on the menu.

Glossary