Sweetna (Kerala Bakery Style) | Sweet Parotta (Step by Step Pics)

How many of you love sweetna aka sweet parotta of Kerala bakeries? As the name suggests it's a sweet  flaky layered parotta with caramelized sugar, tutty fruity and raisins as filling. Over a casual talk with my sis did I feel to recreate this recipe at home. I did browse a few recipes and did try too. I wasn't satisfied with the outcome as most of the recipes used yeast in the dough like for dilkush or coconut stuffed buns which I felt wasn't the exact dough for sweetna. Sweetna that I tasted from our bakeries had a flaky layered parotta feel absent the yeast like puffed dough. Then I happened to watch the Malayalam film 'Sajan Bakery' where the actress and her brother run a bakery and sweetna is prepared along with many other Kerala snacks which left a nostalgic feel and soon did I decide to give sweetna a try again.

Then did I decide to recreate it the same way as Homemade puff pastry sheet, but I didn't wish to use two sticks of butter for the dough making as it was way too much fat. So reduced it to one stick or 100 gms and prepared it. I know most of the Kerala bakeries use dalda or margarine and not butter to give the flaky sheet. However, I personally don't like the dalda or margarine, as it's not very healthy. Butter is also not very healthy but compared to margarine / dalda, butter is better off. The only thing I would like to tell you when preparing this sweetna is you need to have a lot of patience to roll and refrigerate, wait for the next fold. This process needs at least 4 times turn and fold and a maximum of 6 times before you actually prepare so that there are enough layers and puffs up nice and good. If you don't like doing this tedious task, just use a roll of store brought puff pastry sheets and prepare the filling just like listed below. You may find the word 'fold' and 'turn' frequently used in making these sheets.' Fold' refers to folding the dough in third like a letter, and 'turn' refers to turning the dough so that it face you like a book (see pictures to understand better). To my surprise, sweetna tasted just like the bakery ones with flaky layers, remember not to overbake the dough as the crust and bottom may turn very crisp. Apply egg wash for the golden touch and the sweetna tastes best the second day or after complete cooling which tasted just like the bakery ones. Everyone loved it at home and the buttery tastes adds that extra punch to sweetna, you can't just have one. Remember not to roll out the dough very thin else the layers will be reduced, read the full post for more details. Bookmark it up and try this on your leisure time, surprise ur family and am sure all will love the sweet parotta !!

Preparation time ~ 15 minutes

Waiting time ~ 3 hours

Baking time ~ 15-17 mins

Author ~ Julie

Serves ~ 7-8 sweetna

Ingredients

maida / all-purpose flour 2 cups(250gms)

unsalted butter 25 gms,2 tbsp (chilled and cut in cubes)

vinegar /lemon juice 1 tsp

salt 1/2 tsp

water(ice-cold water) 3/4 cup

cold unsalted butter  100gms or 1 stick

unsalted butter softened 2 tbsp

tutty fruity 1/2 cup

black raisins 2 tbsp

cardamom powder 1tsp

sugar granulated 6 tbsp

egg wash or egg white 1 

Method

• Sift the flours and salt together. Add the chilled, cubed pieces of butter in it. Gently rub the butter along with flour to get a coarse mixture or grainy with your hand or food processor. Add vinegar and ice-cold water. Knead into a smooth, pliable dough. Refrigerate immediately by wrapping in a cling wrap until next use.

 

• Put the other unsalted butter(cold) 100g mentioned in the list in between two layers of cling wrap or Ziploc bags and whack using the rolling pin into a mashed form or shape it in the form of a rectangle 5"* 8"(approx). Reserve the softened butter 2 TBS mentioned in the ingredients until use.

                                           

• Flour a rolling surface(refer to notes) and roll out the refrigerated cold dough into a rectangle of 8"*12". Roll out in such a way that each side has a protruding dog ear. Brush off the excess flour using pastry brush. Place the whacked butter slab in between the rolled dough and fold the four edges of the dough to cover the dough & seal it completely such that the butter should not be visible.

                                          

• Gently press and rock the rolling pin back & forth over the dough, slowly stretching the butter and the dough to form a rectangle. Rock in between to stretch the butter, but make sure the butter doesn't seep out the dough. Brush excess of any flour. Fold in third like a business letter(as in pic), make sure to brush excess flour and this completes the first fold. Wrap it in a cling wrap and refrigerate for half an hour.
• Remove the dough from the refrigerator and turn to place in such a way that it faces you like a book. Lightly dust with flour and placing it facing you like a book, roll using a rolling pin and stretch again to form a rectangle with rocking and pressing motion. And then brush the excess flour and turn it by 90 degrees to face you like a book and fold in third like a business letter as shown before. This completes the 2nd fold. Refrigerate again half an hour and repeat the same step until you complete the 6th fold -7th fold. I completed in 6 folds.
• After the final turn, roll it out as a thick rectangle and the thickness of the sheet should be 1/3' thick(don't roll out the sheet very thin as the layers will go missing in this case). Apply the softened butter 2 TBS mentioned  over the rectangular sheet. Then add the 6 TBS of granulated sugar to spread evenly. Over this add the tutty fruity (reserve a TBS of tutty fruity) and black raisins. Starting to roll from your side tightly to secure the last end under the rolls. Then cut 1/2' thick pieces of roll.

                                          

• Place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper or silicon mat. Press the cut pieces with your palm to flatten slightly. Apply the egg wash on top and add the reserved tutty fruity on top, press gently to place the tutty fruity in place. Refrigerate again for half an hour before baking.                              

                                       

• In the meantime, pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F and 200 degrees C. Place in oven and bake for 15-17 minutes until the top looks golden brown and the sweetna looks puffed up (mine was done at 17 minutes)
• Cool completely on wire rack and enjoy with a cup of black tea !!

NOTES

* Butter should be kept cold at all times. If you feel butter is melting or oozing at any point of time when rolling, refrigerate immediately.

* Winters or an air-conditioned room works best to prepare the dough. Use only your fingertips to handle the dough, or minimal handling when folding and turning. Our body temperature too transfers into the dough and the butter melts. The best temperature of the dough prepared is 16 degrees C or 60degrees F.

* Use a cold surface to roll out the dough. I usually use the back of a large tray so that I can leave it on top f it each time after rolling. Refrigerate both the rolling pin and the tray for best results.*The dough must be refrigerated after every fold for a minimum of half an hour to allow gluten in the flour to link up and retain layering.

* The vinegar or lime juice is used to make the dough more elastic and pliable so that it doesn't break while rolling & folding. I used vinegar.

* Keep an account of number of folds and turns so that you don't miss the number.

* For ideal results when baking, refrigerate the made sweetna for 15-30 minutes before placing in the oven so that the cold butter puffs up nicely when baked to give good layers.

* The number of sweetna depends on how thin you roll out the rectangular sheet. Don't roll it very thin else there will be no good flaky layers. The dough should be 1/2' thick when rolled.

* Use colourful mixed tutty fruity to make it very appealing.

* You can use store brought puff pastry sheets for a shortcut method to make sweetna, but here it's hard to get them, and so I made these at home.

Check out more puff pastry sheet recipes 

1. Sweet Puffs
2. Egg Puffs
3. Sweet Moongdal Puffs
4. Nutella Palmiers
5. Savory Tarts
6. Dates Pinwheels
7. Chicken Puffs
8. Puff Pastry Croissanst
9. Tuna Puffs
10. Goat Cheese Tartlettes
11. Vegetable Puffs
12. Kerala Chicken Samosa