Shakar Parae, Sweet Pastry Squares Made From Ready-Made Short Crust or Puff Pastry Sheets
Oven Baked Shakkar Parae
Mamta Gupta
This popular Indian snack is traditionally made by deep-frying small pastry squares and then coating them in a 3 wire sugar syrup.
The name: Shakkar means sugar in Hindi and Para is a fragment or a piece of pastry. So, they are square or diamond shaped small pastry pieces coated in sugar syrup. Parae/Pare is simply plural of Para.
Not many housewives have the time or inclination to make them the traditional way. I have been making them using the ready to roll or ready rolled Short Crust Pastry for years. I sometimes make them with Puff pastry too, as in the picture here. This is so much easier and time saving, give it a try.
Ingredients
350 gm of ready-made short crust pastry packet or make your own; Short Crust Pastry. I use ready made pastry.
2 full tbsp. fine sugar. Caster sugar is good. Adjust to taste
Instructions
Heat oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark4
Spread out the ready rolled pastry. If not rolled, roll it out thinly. In pictures here, I have used ready rolled pastry.
Add and spread out half the sugar on top evenly. Gently press it in with a roller.
Fold the pastry in to a roll.
Then roll it out roughly, so that the sugar is mixed into the pastry.
Sprinkle remaining sugar, fold it again.
This time roll it out to original size, ready to cut.
Place a silicone baking sheet or grease proof paper on your work surface and roll the pastry out to about 2-3 mm. thickness, to its original size and thickness.
Cut vertical lines first, as shown. I use Pizza cutter. You can use ordinary dinner knife, sharp enough for this. You don?t want to use a very sharp knife, because it will cut through your baking sheet. Cutting pastry does not need a super sharp knife anyway.
Now cut in diagonally opposite lines, see pictures.
Place the sheet on a baking tray carefully.
Bake at the centre of a preheated oven for 20-30 minutes, checking after 10 minutes, and then every 5 minutes. Oven performance vary and they can burn very fast. They should look light brown/beige in colour and should be crisp.
Take it out of the oven and leave the sheet on a towel to cool.
Store an an airtight container.
Notes
You can make , Namkeen Parae-Savoury Pastry Squares/Diamonds Baked In Oven in this way too. Simply add salt to taste and 1/2 tsp ajwain or carom seeds, in place of sugar. See picture.
