Sukhdi

Sukhdi (સુખડી) is a Gujarati sweet made by roasting whole wheat flour in ghee, adding jaggery, and letting it set. It is also called gol papdi. This brown sweet is cut into squares or diamonds, and fine flour is evenly packed together inside. It crumbles as you bite, releasing the aroma of milk fat and roasted wheat.

Sukhdi spread on a metal tray and scored. Photo: Sushant savla, 2021; location unknown. Original image used (Source, CC BY-SA 4.0).

The 3 roles of flour, fat, and sugar

The flour used is a whole wheat flour called atta. Rather than being kneaded with water like bread dough, it is roasted in ghee. The flour is cooked while its color and aroma are watched, and the sweetener is added only after it is thoroughly roasted; this order creates the sweet’s grain-like flavor.

The sweetener, jaggery, is a general term for sugar made by boiling down the juice or sap of sugarcane or palms. For this sweet, it is broken or grated and mixed into the warm flour and fat. Unlike mohanthal, for which a thick syrup is made in a separate pan, sukhdi is commonly made by using the heat of the pan in which the flour was roasted to melt the sugar.

Jaggery made from sugarcane. This photo was taken at a market in Punjab, India, and does not show ingredients for sukhdi. Photo: Giridhar Appaji Nag Y, 2007. Original image used (Source, CC BY 2.0).

If heating continues after the sugar is mixed in, the finished sweet can become hard. Once it is off the heat, it is spread on a tray while still warm. If it is scored once it has settled a little, it can be divided into small pieces after it cools.

From 3-ingredient sweets to versions with nuts

Because it has few basic ingredients, differences between households are easy to spot. Sesame, coconut, or almonds may be added, or it may be flavored with cardamom or ginger. Some recipes also add gond, an edible gum, but this is not common to every sukhdi, such as those made with only the 3 basic ingredients.

In methods that use gond, one example is to add crushed edible gum to the roasted wheat flour, cook it, and then mix it with the sugar and nuts. Even when other ingredients are added, the mixture spread on a plate is cut while still warm.

An everyday snack and a celebratory sweet

Sukhdi is a snack that households cut up and keep on hand, and it is also made for celebrations. On the Gujarati table, jaggery is not just an ingredient for sweets. It is eaten with ghee alongside wheat flatbread and is also used at milestones such as engagements. Sukhdi’s simple charm lies in bringing this familiar combination together in a form you can pick up and eat.

Offerings at the Mahudi temple

At the Jain temple in Mahudi, Gujarat, sukhdi is known as an offering to the guardian deity Ghantakarna Mahavir. Connected with a tradition that the deity, who was a king in a previous life, was fond of sukhdi, it is the sweet that worshippers offer. By custom, offered sukhdi is eaten within the temple grounds or shared with others and is not taken outside. Though it is the same sweet, the setting in which it is received differs from that of the snack kept at home and eaten a little at a time.

The Ghantakarna Mahavir temple in Mahudi, where sukhdi is offered. The photo shows the temple grounds and a bell. Photo: Aditya Mahar, 2012. Original image used (Source, CC BY-SA 3.0).

Glossary