Sri Lankan Sweets

"Sri Lankan Cuisine" chapter 2                                                  

                   Sri Lankan Sweets

A common dessert in Sri Lanka is kevum, an oil cake made with rice flour and treacle and deep-fried to a golden brown. There are many variations of kevum. Moong Kevum is a variant in which mung bean flour is made into a paste and shaped like diamonds before frying. Other types of kevum include athiraha, konda kevum, athirasa, and handi kevum.

Many sweets are served with kiribath (milk rice) during the Sinhalese and Tamil New Year and Sri Lankan Traditional Events.

Other sweets include:

• Aluwa – Diamond-shaped rice-flour pastries.

• Bibikkan – A rich, cake-like sweet made from grated coconut, coconut treacle, and wheat flour. It is a specialty of coastal areas.

• Kokis – A savoury crispy biscuit-like dish made from rice flour and coconut milk.

• Pusnambu / Wandu Appa – A rich, cake-like sweet made from coconut treacle and wheat flour. Cinnamon/cardamom and sweet cumin is often added among the Christian population of Sri Lanka.

• Naran Kavum - Naran Kavum is a sweet dish which mainly had coconut, sugar and rice flour as ingredients. It very much resembles our sukiyan in appearance and taste. We generally use jaggery as the sweetener in sukhiyan but lankan use sugar for sweetening.

• Helapa - Helapa  is a traditional Sri Lankan sweet treat. It's prepared with a combination of kurakkan flour, rice flour, treacle, cardamom, and grated coconut. The ingredients are cooked together and mixed until they develop a doughy consistency. The mixture is then flattened on kanda leaves, which are folded and steamed until the dough firms up. 

• Lavariya - Lavariya  is a popular traditional Sri Lankan sweet dumpling. It is essentially caramelised coconut wrapped in a string hopper

• Sri Lankan Coconut Pancakes - Sri Lankan coconut pancakes are a delicious snack made with spiced sweet coconut filling wrapped in a thin crepe. 

• Thala Aluwa - A traditional Sri Lankan delicacy made from Sesame, desiccated coconut, chocolate essence and vanilla.

Treacle-flavored sweets:

• Undu Walalu/Undu wal or Pani walalu – A sweet from the Mathale area, prepared using urad bean flour and kithul treacle.

• Aggala – Rice balls flavored with treacle.

• Weli Thalapa – Made from rice flour and coconut treacle.

• Aasmi – Made with rice flour and the juice of a leaf called dawul kurundu (okra juice can be used as a substitute), deep fried and topped with pink-coloured treacle.

Kalu Dodol – A solid toffee-, jelly-like confection made by lengthy reduction of coconut milk, thickened with rice flour and sweetened with jaggery.

• Watalappam – A steamed pudding made with coconut milk, eggs, and jaggery. First introduced by the Malay immigrants, watalappam has become a staple of Sri Lankan desserts.

Thala Guli – Made from ground sesame and jaggery with finely grated coconut.

• Kiri aluwa or Milk Toffee – Made with sweetened condensed milk or sugar-thickened pure cow's milk. Cardamom/sweet cumin and cashews are added for more taste.

• Kithul Jaggery- Kitul jaggery is produced by boiling the collected sap of a kitul flower over an open woodfire hearth. To make jaggery, it must be boiled beyond the point it turns to treacle so that it thickens further and then it should be poured into the moulds typically fashioned out of coconut shells.

 Related  Article  : "Sri Lankan Cuisine" chapter 1      "Sri Lankan Cuisine" chapter 3

                                :  "Sri Lankan Cuisine" chapter 4