Soan papdi is a popular Indian dessert. It is usually cube-shaped or served as flakes, and has a crisp and flaky texture. It is also known as patisa, san papri, sohan papdi or shonpapdi. This delightful sweet is made from all-purpose flour, gram flour, sugar, water, and milk. To accentuate the taste of this dish, they add powdered green cardamom to make it more delicious and top it up with some roasted pistachios or almonds and crushed rose petals to make it look more eye-grabbing.
Soan papdi is the Indian candy floss. Soan papdi has a similar variety of sweet available all over the world. It is very similar to Turkish candy floss which is known as pismaniye. Pismaniye is made from roasted flour and butter is blended into sugar and the sweet garnished with pistachios which are made differently too from candy floss. The roasting of the flour and the pistachios both contribute a sense of nuttiness to the confection. This is even more apparent in the soan papdi, where the flavor of the gram flour contributes to the nutty flavor profile.
In India sweets are distinguished in three varieties: milk-based, vegetable/ fruit-based (like the various halwas), and wheat flour or gram flour (besan) based. Milk-based sweets are made to be consumed the same day. While vegetable/ fruit based sweets can be consumed for 2-3 days not more than that. But the sweets made from flour can be consumed for a longer time.
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The flaky soan papdi however, is just a cousin of the patisa, a seemingly far more ancient mithai. Gram flour (besan) is an ingredient that is fairly unique to Indian cooking. In India, it is used in many sweet and savory dishes. Gram flour contains a high proportion of carbohydrates, higher fiber relative to other flours, no gluten, and a higher proportion of protein than other flours.
Patisa is much denser, is just a barfi or fudge made with bhuna besan, ghee, and sugar. There is one more similar sweet to soan papdi it is Mysore pak. It is also a gram flour (besan) barfi but more moist than the patisa. The flour is roasted more here and the resultant confection has a far richer color than the soan papdi, which is off-white/pale compared to the robust southern cousin.
As all the sweets made from gram flour has dark color but soan papdi has a lighter color. It is because from the aeration of the mix but also because unlike the purely besan-based sweets, this one is made with a mix of besan and maida. This makes it much closer to European and Turkish flour-based sweets. It has a texture like Rajasthani sweet feni which is popular in the season of monsoon. It has light strands that make it stretch without breaking.
Soan papdi is said to have originated specifically in Western state Maharashtra; and spread across Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan states. The Indian state Uttar Pradesh also has been proposed as the potential origin of the sweet. It’s a very light and flaky sweet that is available in almost every sweet shop in India. You’ll often find vendors on streets selling soan papdi because of it being one of the most loved sweets. A simple but very delicious sweet, this is one which no one can say no to. It is super tasty and super healthy because it consists of good ingredients.
Benefits Of Soan Papdi
The key ingredient of soan papdi is gram flour which has many benefits. It is rich in vitamins, fiber, high protein, and fewer calories than other flours. It has green cardamoms used in this delicious recipe are known for lowering blood pressure and might contain cancer-fighting properties as well. These are good with curing digestive problems and mouth ulcers too. It consists of ghee it is a good source of fat to your body.
