Mysore Pak is a ghee-based Indian sweet. It originated in the city of Mysuru, state of Karnataka. It is made with help of generous amounts of ghee, sugar, gram flour, and often cardamom. The texture of this sweet is similar to that of a buttery and dense fudge.
Mysore Pak is made especially for weddings and other festivities in southern India, and it is highly popular at baby showers.
Krishna Raja Wodeyar IV (1902–1940), the Maharaja of Mysore, was a cuisine expert as well as a food lover. He kept a vast kitchen in the Amba Vilas Palace in Mysore to serve numerous people.
The year was 1935, and the city of Mysore was ruled by Krishnaraja Wodeyar. On one particular day, the kitchen of Amba Vilas Palace (where the monarch used to live) was humming with the daily activity of preparing an opulent meal for the royal family. Except for the dessert at lunch, everything was in order. The top chef, Kaksura Madappa, was concocting a delectable but strange sweet treat for the monarch. With time running out, he began experimenting.
Madappa combined ghee, gram flour, and sugar to make a syrup, which he served on the royal thali (plate). By the time the King completed his meal, the syrup had thickened somewhat and taken on the consistency of a hot, fudge-like sweet. Krishnaraja Wodeyar was genuinely astonished and mesmerised by the dish, which melted the minute he placed it in his mouth.
He summoned Madappa and inquired about the new dessert’s name. “Mysore Paka,” murmured Madappa, the first thing that sprang to mind. Paka is a Kannada word that means “sweet mixture.” With time, the dish became a favourite of the nobility and was dubbed ‘Mysore Pak.’
Even today, Mysore Pak is regarded as the “King” of South Indian sweets. During the 10 days of Dussehra festivities, Mysore women are expected to make at least 51 traditional items. A platter of food and sweets without a smidgeon of Mysore Pak is and will always be incomplete.
A few years ago, some self-proclaimed patriots demanded that Mysore Pak be renamed ‘Mysore India.’ They thought that f or some political reasons, the name of the sweets has been twisted. What they didn’t realise was that the delicacy was created over a decade before partition. What their ignorance fails to recognise is that the term Pak has Telugu roots and refers to a delicious confection.
The dessert Mysore Pak and the term Pak are a genuine picture of what India stands for: a delectable combination of many cultures, rituals, traditions, faiths, nationalities, beliefs, and much more. Paaka or extreme sweet refers to the sticky sugar syrup obtained by simmering sugar with an equal amount of water; specifically, for Mysore Pak, the simple syrup heated to the softball stage. The syrup is used as the primary sweetening agent in various Indian sweet dishes like jalebi, badam puri, Mysore Pak, and others. The syrup is given a taste with spice essences like cardamom, rose, honey, etc. Paaka syrup preparation is a skilled art mastered by few cooks.
Mysore pak has improved as time goes by. However, the original sweet made with the original recipe is still available at the famous “Guru Sweets” stores in Devaraja Market, run by Mr. Nataraj, who is the great-grandson of the original inventor of the dish, Kakasura Madappa.
Basically, there are two versions of Mysore Pak. One is the soft version of the traditional one, and the other is a little chewy. The most interesting thing about Mysore Pak is that it has a shelf-life of a maximum of six months.
Another recipe for Mysore Pak, which is known as milk Mysore Pak, is also a traditional Indian recipe with a melt-in-your-mouth texture and is made of milk powder, sugar, and clarified butter (ghee).Considered the “King” of sweets in South India, Mysore Pak has been given the Geographical Indication (GI) tags.