Putharekulu: How the Paper Sweet of Andhra Is Actually Made

Putharekulu is the sweet that surprises people. It looks like a folded sheet of paper and it dissolves the moment it touches your tongue. Visitors to the Godavari districts almost always take a box home.

The wrapper is rice. A thin batter is wiped across the base of an inverted earthen pot heated from below, and the film that forms is lifted off in one piece. It is a genuinely difficult skill and the reason Putharekulu has never been fully mechanised.

Those sheets are layered with ghee and either powdered sugar or jaggery, then folded. Jaggery, or bellam, gives a darker, more mineral sweetness that many people prefer. Dry fruit Putharekulu adds crushed cashew, almond and pistachio between the layers.

Freshness matters more here than with almost any other sweet. The rice sheets absorb moisture from the air, and a Putharekulu more than a couple of weeks old loses the papery snap that makes it special.

A good one is pale, dry to the touch and slightly translucent. If it looks damp, feels leathery, or the layers have fused into a single block, it has been sitting too long.

We make ours in small batches for this reason, and we pack them with care because they are as fragile as they look.