Sutarfeni

Strand-like pheni were Phenakas mentioned in various Indian texts. Phenakas is a broad term which includes various dishes prepared by using layered fried dough. Vijayanagar records indicate that Pheni was another much relished sweet dish prepared from wheat flour and sugar, similar to phenaka of North India and had varieties like sugar pheni, milk pheni and vermicelli pheni[1][2][3]

Sutarpheni is of the Indian analogs of the Turkish pismaniye, which uses wheat flour instead of rice flour, and the Persian pashmak, which substitutes sesame paste for wheat flour. The choice of rice flour as the source of starch is not critical, and regular white (wheat) flour may be substituted. Sohan papdi is similar except that it uses a mixture of chickpea flour and wheat flour as the starting material instead of rice flour. The threads of pismaniye, however, are considerably finer than those of sutarfeni, because the gluten in wheat flour allows the pastry strands to be thinner without falling apart . The addition of cardamom as a flavoring agent is a typically Indian touch.

Without special equipment to melt the sugar/flour mixture and spin it into threads, making sutarpheni can be laborious and the recipe is unsuitable for preparation at home. (Videos illustrating the manual preparation show 3-4 people standing around a large pan and pulling the pastry into a circle that is repeatedly folded upon itself.) Alternative recipes start either with shredded filo pastry, which is fried in butter or shortening,[4] or ready—made store-bought fried wheat vermicelli.[5] The pastry is then combined with about half its weight of sugar syrup (made with 2 parts sugar and 1 part water), which is then gradually absorbed by the pastry, so that the final product is dry.