Mysore pak

Mysore pak is gram flour, sugar and ghee in close to equal cup measures, cooked together until the mixture froths and turns porous; the ghee, added in three lots, is what gives the sweet its sandy, melt-in-the-mouth texture. Unlike barfi or mohanthal, the besan is never roasted to a colour: it is added to the syrup pale, and all the cooking happens in the syrup itself.

Two stages decide the sweet. First the syrup is boiled to one string, thick enough to carry the flour but not so thick that it sets before the ghee is in. Then the ghee goes in three lots, and each lot is fully worked into the mixture before the next, which is what opens up the porous, sandy grain the sweet is known for.

Set-and-cut timing is the last step that can go wrong: the slab is cut while warm, when it holds a knife mark without shattering, and left in the tray to cool completely before the pieces are lifted out. The pieces keep for about two weeks in an airtight dabba. The same flour and syrup, with the ghee rubbed in instead of cooked in, gives the crumbly mohanthal.