Lonavla Chikki

Lonavla (near Mumbai, India) is famed for it's Chikki, a rockhard workout for the jaws, made of gur (unrefined sugar made from canee juice) and nuts. Lonavala was so named because of the word 'lenya' which means caves in Marathi. There are many rock-cut caves, which surround Lonavala - Karla, Bhaje and Bedse caves.

Chikki is a traditional ready-to-eat Indian sweet made usually from groundnuts and jaggery. There are several different varieties of chikki in addition to the most common groundnut chikki. Each chikki is named depending upon the ingredients used. Usually ingredients such as puffed/roasted bengal gram, sesame, puffed rice, beaten rice, and Kopra (desiccated coconut) used. Some chikkis are made using a combination of these ingredients. Special chikkis are made out of cashews, almonds, and pistachios.

Though jaggery is the usual used as the sweetener material, sugar is used as the base in certain types of chikkis. It is a very popular sweet item in both rural and urban India. Some people also add glucose to the chikkis, and "glucose chikkis" are very famous in India.

The preparation of chikkis is very simple and consists of first preparing the hot jaggery syrup with minimum water, adding nuts to the syrup to get coated (with syrup) and then transferring to a wooden mould, rolling into thickness of about 6-8 mm with wooden roller, cutting into slabs, and packing. At homes smaller quantities are hand rolled with wooden rollers.

The most popular place for chikkis in India is Lonavala, near Mumbai.

Chikki are available in more than 35 varieties. They have cashew, groundnut (crushed and whole), chana, kesar pista, badam, coconut, rajgira, kurmura, til, dry fruits mixed and permutations and combination of all these.

The price per kilo starts at Rs 80 for groundnut, til, chana chikki to Rs 520 for Kesar pista. Chocolate walnut fudge comes at a princely sum of Rs 600 a kilo. There are around 35-40 brands of chikki sold in Lonavala of which Manganlal, A-1 and National Chikki are best in quality.