Shakarpara calories
Ten home shakarpara, about 60 g, have about 300 calories; one 6 g piece about 30, and 100 g about 500. Sugar is a sixth of the number; the ghee in the dough and the frying oil nearly half. No lab figure or packed label was found, so the number rests on the recipe and the frying assumptions stated below.
Shakarpara, or shankarpali in Maharashtra, is maida kneaded with sugar, a little rava and ghee, rolled, cut into diamonds and deep-fried until golden. It is the sweet half of a Diwali faral plate, next to namak para, and one of the few sweets that keeps for a month in a dabba.
It is a fried biscuit, so most of its calories are flour and fat; the sugar is less than people expect, about a fifth of the weight.
Typical values for a home kitchen, for the portion named next to each number. Other sites often show bigger numbers because they count a bigger serving or a restaurant recipe. Your own katori, roti and oil change the number; Slate adjusts for them.
How many calories are in shakarpara?
| Portion | Cals | Protein | Carbs | Fat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 piece (about 6 g) about 6 g | 30 | 0 g | 4 g | 2 g |
| 10 pieces (about 60 g) about 60 g | 300 | 3 g | 37 g | 16 g |
| 100 g about 100 g | 500 | 6 g | 62 g | 26 g |
What changes the calories in shakarpara?
- Oil taken up in frying is about a quarter of the number; thick pieces take up less per gram than thin ones.
- Sugar: recipes run from a quarter cup to a full cup per 2 cups of maida. Each extra quarter cup adds about 2.5 calories a piece.
- A chashni-coated shakarpara, dipped in syrup after frying, carries a sugar shell on top of this: a thin coat adds 5 to 10 calories a piece.
- Atta or jaggery versions are close per gram.
- Namak para from the same kind of dough without sugar is about 260 for 10 pieces.
How were these numbers worked out?
No standard textbook in the Indian Nutrient Databank has shakarpara or shankarpali, so Slate uses Hebbar's Kitchen's shankarpali: 2 cups of maida with 2 tablespoons of rava, half a cup of sugar dissolved in water, a quarter cup of ghee and a pinch of salt, kneaded stiff, cut into diamonds and deep-fried, with cups at USDA's weights, the dough ghee counted in full, at IFCT 2017 values with sugar from USDA. The oil taken up is set at about 14% of the raw weight, the uptake worked out for the samosa on this site, and the finished pieces at 4% moisture, both assumptions, so the batch is about 472 g and 500 calories per 100 g; a 6 g piece is 30 calories and 10 pieces 300. No lab analysis or packed label for shakarpara was found, so there is no cross-check and no outside range; the namak para and mathri pages, the same kind of dough, do match their labels. Every dish on Slate is worked out the same way: how Slate counts calories.
| Ingredient | Raw | Values from |
|---|---|---|
| Wheat flour, refined (maida) 2 cups | 240 g | IFCT 2017 A018 |
| Semolina (suji, rava) 2 tablespoons of rava | 21 g | IFCT 2017 A022 |
| Sugar, white half a cup, dissolved in the water | 100 g | USDA FDC 169655 |
| Ghee quarter cup, in the dough | 51 g | IFCT 2017 T013 |
| Water to dissolve the sugar and knead: an assumption, cooked off in frying | 90 g | no calories |
| Groundnut oil Taken up in frying: about 14% of the raw weight, as worked out for the samosa on this site (an assumption) | 70 g | IFCT 2017 T005 |
Sources
- ICMR-NIN, Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. Maida (A018), semolina (A022), ghee (T013); values read from github.com/nodef/ifct2017
- Vijayakumar et al., Indian Nutrient Databank (INDB), Current Developments in Nutrition, 2024. Checked for shakarpara or shankarpali: none
- Indian Nutrient Databank, recipes.xlsx, recipes_servingsize.xlsx and INDB.xlsx (GitHub). Units file: cup weights for flour, sugar and semolina; ghee per tablespoon
- Hebbar's Kitchen, Shankarpali recipe (sweet shakarpara, shakkar para). ½ cup sugar, 2 tbsp rava, 2 cups maida, ½ tsp salt, ¼ cup ghee, water, oil for frying
- Sakhale et al., oil uptake of lab-fried samosas (as used on the samosa page), and USDA FNDDS samosa. Frying oil taken up: about 14% of the raw weight, worked out on the samosa page from a fresh-oil lab study (18.3% fat) and USDA FNDDS (17.5 g fat per 100 g)
- USDA FoodData Central, Sugars, granulated (169655). Sugar; a teaspoon is 4.2 g and a cup 200 g
Questions people ask
How many calories are in shakarpara?
About 30 for one 6 g piece, 300 for 10 pieces (60 g) and 500 per 100 g, for home shakarpara fried in oil.
How many calories are in 100 g of shakarpara?
About 500 for this recipe, an estimate without a lab figure to check against.
How much sugar is in shakarpara?
About 13 g of added sugar in 10 pieces, 60 g: the sugar is about a fifth of the weight. A syrup-coated shakarpara has more.
Which has more calories, shakarpara or namak para?
They are close. Ten shakarpara are about 300 and ten namak para about 260; the sugar in one and the extra fat in the other roughly cancel out per piece.
How many calories are in 10 shakarpara?
About 300 for 10 home pieces of about 6 g each.