Laung Latika

Laung latika is a small fried sweet that encloses a sweet milk-based filling. It is recognizable by the single clove that fastens the center of each parcel, and its name varies by region: lobongo lotika in Bengal and laung lata in North India, among others. It is enjoyed in Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bengal and other regions.

Lobongo lotika with its folded wrapper fastened by a clove (2017, Mmrsafy / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0). Downscaled version from the source; content unchanged since retrieval.

The clove is both a spice and a fastener

The filling is placed on a wheat-dough wrapper, the left and right sides are folded in, and the remaining edges are layered over to close it like a small parcel. A clove pushed through the overlapping center keeps the wrapper from opening in the oil. Rather than being ground and mixed into the whole dough, the clove keeps its form and becomes part of the shaping.

Both laung and lobongo are names connected to the clove. The clove that fastens the parcel also serves as a mark for identifying the sweet.

Making the wrapper, filling and syrup separately

The wrapper is made from a dough of maida, a refined wheat flour, rubbed together with ghee and brought together with water. The filling is based on khoya, made by cooking milk down, combined with sugar, nuts, cardamom and other ingredients. Some versions use coconut or raisins.

Mawa (khoya) in a bowl. Photo: Miansari66, year and location unknown. Uses the brightness-adjusted version by Hohum posted on Commons (Source · public domain).

After the wrapper is rolled thin and folded around the filling, the parcel is deep-fried in fat and finally placed in sugar syrup. Instead of kneading a lot of sugar into the wrapper itself, this method adds sweetness to the fried layers afterward. Because the folded, overlapping parts and the thin parts covering the filling differ in thickness, the sweet is cooked through to the center while the surface is finished.

A fold unlike half-moon sweets

Karanji and similar sweets also wrap a sweet filling in dough and are fried, but laung latika is built by folding the dough in layers and fastening the center. Unlike methods that crimp the edges of a pouch-shaped wrapper, the folded layers here meet at the center.

The syrup-soaked wrapper, the rich milk filling and the aroma of clove come together, and each part can be tasted in turn when this small sweet is eaten. In Bihar, it is also sold in sweet shops under the name laung lata. Chanda Guha, who introduces home recipes in Bengali, writes that her mother and grandmother made this sweet around the time of Durga Puja. In her family, a filling of cooked-down milk combined with coconut is wrapped, fried and then soaked in sugar syrup.

Glossary