Shakarpara Recipe | Khurma | Shakkarpare

Making Shakarpara Dough

1. Take whole wheat flour in a mixing bowl or pan. Add 2 tablespoons of ghee. The ghee should be at room temperature and in a semi solid state. Instead of whole wheat flour you can also take all purpose flour and oil instead of ghee.
2. With your fingertips, mix the ghee with the flour very well.
3. When you press the flour and ghee mixture in your palm, you should get a flour lump like shown in the picture below. The mixture should be able to hold itself together without falling apart.
4. Now add water in parts. Depending on the quality of flour, you can add less or more water. I added ½ cup water.
5. Begin to knead the dough. Add water as required. If you use all-purpose flour, you will need less water.
6. Knead to a firm semi soft dough. Neither too soft nor too hard. The dough should be not soft like the dough we make for chapatis.
7. Divide the dough into three equal parts. Cover with a lid.
8. Take one part and roll into a thick paratha of 7 to 8 inches in diameter.
9. With a knife make squares or diamond shapes on the rolled dough, by slicing criss cross or vertically-horizontally.

Frying Shakkarpare

1. Heat oil for deep frying in a kadai or pan. Test the oil temperature by adding a small piece of the dough in the pan. This small piece of the dough should come up gradually and quickly on the surface. If it comes slowly, the oil has a lower temperature and if it comes up too quickly, the oil has high temperature. I fried on medium heat. You can regulate the heat while frying by increasing or decreasing it.
2. Slid the cut diamond shaped dough in the medium hot oil.
3. Depending on the pan size, you can add more or less. But do make sure that there is some space while frying them.
4. When the shakkarpara are crisp and light golden, turn over and fry.
5. Keep on frying them and turning as and when needed for even frying.
6. Fry till all of them turn golden.
7. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain shakkar pare on kitchen paper towels to remove excess oil.
8. Continue to prepare the shakkarpara and fry them as mentioned in the above steps.
9. When you are begin frying the last batch, you can start preparing the sugar syrup. Let all the shakkarpara come to room temperature, before you add them in the sugar syrup.

Making sugar syrup

1. Take 1 cup sugar in another kadai or pan. Add ½ cup water.
2. Keep the pan on a low to medium heat. Stir so that the sugar dissolves.
3. Continue cooking the sugar syrup till it starts bubbling and getting sticky. A suggestion here is to add some saffron strands in sugar syrup to get orange or yellow colored shakkarpara.
4. Simmer till you get a 2 to 3 thread consistency in the syrup. To check the consistency, take a bit of the syrup in a spoon. Let it become warm and then take the syrup between your forefinger and thumb. Press and separate the fingers. You should see two to three threads in the sugar syrup.
5. Once the two to three thread consistency is reached, quickly add all the shakkarpara in the syrup.
6. Briskly stir and toss well, so that all the shakkarpara are coated with the sugar syrup.
7. The sugar syrup crystallizes soon, so mix very well and be quick.
8. Now take all the shakkarpara in a plate and allow them to come at room temperature. The sugar syrup will crystallize on cooling.
9. Once all of them cool down, store shakkarpara in an air-tight box or jar. These stay good for a few months.