Khaja Recipe

: Crispy Layered Puri-Style Sweet in Sugar Syrup

Khaja belongs to Puri before it belongs to anywhere else, sold outside the Jagannath Temple in stacks, wrapped in paper, eaten on the walk back from darshan. The same sweet turns up under slightly different names across Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, but the method stays close to this: a plain maida dough, rested until relaxed, then rolled thin and layered with a paste of rice flour and ghee before being rolled into a tight log and sliced into coins. It's the slicing that gives khaja its signature; each disc reveals a spiral of paper-thin layers that puff and separate the moment it hits hot oil. The syrup is where the texture settles; a cardamom-scented, one-string sugar syrup, cooked with a few drops of lemon juice to keep it from crystallising, soaks into the warm, crisp layers just long enough to sweeten them without turning them soft.