Singori

Singori (Singori, Singodi) is a sweet from the state of Uttarakhand in which a confection of reduced milk is wrapped in a leaf folded into a cone. It is known as a specialty of the Kumaon region, including Almora, but it also has a long association with Tehri Garhwal to the west. The leaf wraps the milk sweet and gives it its shape, and it also adds aroma. The wrapping is removed before eating.

Reducing milk while leaving a slight graininess

The main ingredient, khoa, is a concentrated dairy product made by heating milk to reduce its moisture. Unlike cheese, which is made by setting milk with acid and removing the whey, khoa is made by gathering the milk solids in the pan. Sugar is added, and the mixture is finished to a consistency that can be packed into the leaf.

Its color ranges from white to lightly tinted, and a slight graininess remains within the soft mass of milk. In the Almora district’s method, cardamom and coconut also add flavor. Once it is taken out of the leaf, you taste not only the milk but also the aroma of the wrapping leaf, called malu.

A 2016 study comparing commercial products from Kumaon recorded a process that uses khoa made from cow’s or buffalo milk, adds sugar and flavorings, and creates graininess with a small amount of tartaric acid. Unlike the process of making cheese by separating the whey with acid, this is a small addition used to adjust the texture of a reduced-milk sweet. In the process recorded in the same study, the warm confection is spread in a greased container and left for a while before being packed into the leaves.

The wrapping leaf creates the shape

The leaf is folded into a cone, and the milk sweet is packed inside. The wrapped leaf itself holds the shape of the soft milk sweet. Its form, with a wide open end and a narrow, tapering tip, comes from the way the leaf is wrapped.

The malu leaf is a feature that distinguishes this sweet from other khoa sweets. The aroma of the leaf layers over the flavors of milk, coconut and cardamom, and together with the cone shape, it gives singori its characteristic finish.

Bal mithai, also from Almora, is a sweet in which milk is cooked until brown and coated on the outside with white sugar balls. With singori, the leaf is removed and the milk part is eaten. Although both use reduced milk, they differ in how the cooking is finished and in what is used on the outside, so they also differ in appearance and in the aroma you notice when eating them.

Memories of Tehri, and a family story from Almora

Tehri, too, has memories of singori as a beloved specialty of the town. “Meri Tehri,” a memoir looking back on Tehri, records that the town’s singori was known far and wide and that people from the plains called it “the sweet wrapped in a leaf.” A memory also remains that the singori from Negi’s shop was especially well regarded. The memory of the leaf-wrapped sweet survives in the reputation of the town’s sweet shops and in the name given to it by people from outside the town.

Meanwhile, Heera Singh Jeewan Singh, a sweet shop in Almora, tells a different family story. According to the family, Ram Lal, one of its confectioners, worked at a sweet shop elsewhere while returning from a pilgrimage to Badrinath, and brought back to Almora the singori he had encountered there. The family’s account also mentions that singori had already been made in Tehri Garhwal before that.

Both the memories of the town of Tehri and the pilgrimage story handed down by the Almora family feature people who made, sold and brought home the sweet in their respective places. The year of its creation is not known, but the leaf-wrapped sweet has been handed down as a specialty of more than one place.

Singori wrapped in a cone of leaf. The wrapping material creates the product’s shape. Photo: Vinaysharmahbd. Image source / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Glossary