Lobongo Lotika

A flaky parcel, filled with kheer (sweetened, reduced milk), sealed with a clove, deep fried, and coated with sugar syrup.

  • Cooking time
    3 hours
  • Calories
    kcal
Recommended by
97.8
%
of
9628
members who rated this recipe on Youtube

Bengali cuisine is no stranger to sweet tea-time snacks, and certainly not to those that involve kheer, flour, and deep-frying. Lobongo lotika, like mishti shingara and goja, is a flaky, deep-fried, sugar-syrup-coated pastry. Like the mishti singara, it is also filled with kheer. But what gives lobongo lotika its whimsically poetic name is the fact that the kheer envelopes, once folded, are sealed with a single clove (lobongo).

This recipe calls for only six ingredients, all of which you undoubtedly have on hand. The preparation is elaborate. Deal with each stage, one at a time, as shown below. The filling (kheer) can also be prepared 3 to 5 days ahead of time, and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator, till needed.

Books in this recipe

No items found.
Like the work we do? Help keep this site ad-free by making a donation.
Donate

Ingredients

Serves
10 pieces

FOR THE FILLING

  • 1 kg whole milk
  • 45 g sugar
  • ¾ tsp maida (flour)

FOR THE SUGAR SYRUP

  • 400 g sugar
  • 200 g water

FOR THE PASTRY

  • 200 g maida (flour)
  • 40 g ghee
  • 4 g salt
  • 80 g water
  • ~ 400 g vegetable oil (for deep-frying)

Method

STEP I—PREPARE THE FILLING

  1. Take 1 kg milk in a heavy-bottom saucepan and set it to boil.
  2. Once bubbling, stir in 45 g sugar.
  3. Keep boiling the milk, while stirring it continuously, for about 90 minutes.
  4. During this entire time, the pot should be on medium to low heat.
  5. At regular intervals of 3–4 minutes, scrape the solids from the bottom and sides of the pot, and incorporate them into the boiling milk. This step, as well as the previous one, is crucial. We don’t want our kheer to burn at any point.
  6. Once the milk has reduced and thickened (when you lift some of it on your spoon and drop it, it should fall in clumps), make a paste of ¾ tsp flour and 1 tbsp milk.
  7. Add this paste to the pot. Stir and cook for another 5 minutes.
  8. Divide the kheer into 10 portions of 20 g each.
  9. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least two hours.

STEP II—THE PASTRY DOUGH

  1. In a mixing bowl, take 200 g flour, 40 g ghee, and 4 g salt. Mix these ingredients well till they take on a bread-crumb texture. The idea is to distribute the fat among the flour particles, in order to make the pastry crisp and flaky.
  2. Now, add in 80 g water.
  3. Mix until the dough comes together. This is a tight dough, so don’t add more water even if it seems a bit dry at first.
  4. Cover the dough and rest it for at least 20 minutes.

STEP III—SHAPING

  1. Once the kheer has chilled in the fridge for at least 2 hours, and the pastry dough is rested for at least 20 minutes, proceed to shaping each of them.
  2. Shape each 20 g portion of kheer into 3 cm by 4 cm tablets. Put them back in the fridge to chill, till needed.
  3. Divide the dough in 10 portions of 30 g each.
  4. Shape each portion into a flat disc. Cover and rest, till needed.
  5. This proportion—20 g kheer and 30 g dough—will give you the best filling to pastry ratio.

STEP IV—CONSTRUCTION

  1. Roll each portion of the dough into a 14 cm disc, about 1 mm thick.
  2. Place a kheer tablet at the centre of the disc.
  3. With your fingertips, apply water to the edges of the rolled pastry. This will act as a glue.
  4. Fold the opposite ends over one another, overlapping them. Press gently to seal.
  5. Turn the pastry over and apply water to the protruding wings. Fold them over each other, sealing them as you go.
  6. Use a clove to seal the topmost layer of the envelope in place.
  7. Follow these steps for all the pastries.

STEP V—THE SUGAR SYRUP

  1. In a saucepan, add 400 g sugar and 200 g water.
  2. Cover with a lid, and set it on medium heat for about 10 minutes, or till the sugar syrup starts bubbling.
  3. For this recipe, we do not want a thick syrup. It should be the consistency of, say, packaged fruit juice.

STEP VI—FRYING

  1. Heat oil in a frying pan to 150°C. The oil should be 5-cm deep.
  2. Lobongo lotika is not fried in hot oil like other deep-fried snacks or crisps. Since this pastry has a lot of layers of flour, we must fry it at low temperatures to ensure that all the layers cook through. If you try to fry it at a high temperature, the outside may look brown and done, but the inner layers will still be gummy.
  3. Because of the slow frying, each batch of lobongo lotika will take about 30 minutes to cook completely.
  4. During this period, turn them every five minutes to ensure that the dough is getting cooked, and hardening, from both sides evenly. Otherwise, the kheer may start to ooze out of the softer end.
  5. In case the filling leaks into the oil, you may remove the damaged pastry from the oil and put it inside an oven at 175°C for about 20 minutes.
  6. Once the pastries are golden-brown in colour, drain them from the oil and dunk them in the sugar syrup. Coat well, shake off the excess syrup, and place them on a plate to cool.

Recipe discussion

Did this recipe help you cook something that made you happy?

At Bong Eats, we are working to standardise Bengali recipes, and present them to the world in a way that anyone, anywhere will be able to cook Bengali food with confidence—even if they have never tasted it before. We want the world to know that there is Indian food beyond tikka masala.

A lot of time and money goes into creating precise recipes such as this one. We don't want to depend on advertisements that track our viewers' activities through third-party cookies; we do not want take sponsorship money from companies that don't make subpar products.

You can help us make this a sustainable venture that can employ talented local writers, editors, photographers, recipe-testers, and more. Donate to keep us going.

Make a One-time donation

Help us keep Bong Eats free and open for everyone by making a one-time contribution. You can donate as much as you want. No amount is too little.

Donate
Become a member ⭐️

Join to get access to a vibrant private community of people who full of people who love to cook, feed and eat. Get answers to your questions about recipes, techniques, where to find ingredients from fellow members. If you love cooking, this is the place for you.

Monthly LIVE cookalongs
Shiny new private forum
Adda after every video release
Personalised recommendations
✨ See Membership Perks ✨
OR

🧣 Winter 🫛

Bakes & Roasts

Posted on
December 21, 2023
by
Bong Eats

Winter is here. It is time to get baking. Here are some ideas, both savoury and sweet.

Read More »

✨ What's new?

View all »

Potoler Khosha Bata

A spicy, fudgy mash made of pointed gourd (potol) peels.

  • 60 mins
  • 90
    kcal
Viewers liked this
%

Palong Shaak Bhaja

Stir-fried spinach

  • 30 mins
  • 79
    kcal
Viewers liked this
%

Christmas Fruitcake without Alcohol

A festive, rich, spiced cake with dried fruits and nuts

  • 4 hours
  • kcal
Viewers liked this
%

Niramish Mangsho

Mutton cooked without onion or garlic

  • 2 hours
  • 640
    kcal
Viewers liked this
97.9
%
See all New recipes »
More
Snack
recipes
View all »

Jhal Sooji

Sooji (semolina) cooked in Bengali spices and seasonal vegetables: a healthy and hearty breakfast.

  • 45 minutes
  • kcal

Jhal Muri

A quick, delicious, and healthy snack of puffed rice found mostly on the streets of Kolkata.

  • 1 hour
  • kcal
More
desserts
recipes
View all »

Lobongo Lotika

A flaky parcel, filled with kheer (sweetened, reduced milk), sealed with a clove, deep fried, and coated with sugar syrup.

  • 3 hours
  • kcal
More
pitha
recipes
View all »

Moog Puli

This deep-fried moog dal pitha is nutty and crunchy on the outside with a rich coconut and jaggery filling inside.

  • 2 hours
  • 152
    kcal

Choshir Payesh

Tiny, handmade, spindle-shaped rice-flour dumplings cooked in milk

  • 2 hours
  • 258
    kcal

Shora or Chitoi Pithe

A simple Sankranti snack made with rice batter—served with freshly grated coconut and liquid date-palm jaggery.

  • 4 hours
  • kcal