Rangalur Pitha

Steamed rice pitha filled with coconut and jaggery

Prep Time 40 min
Cook Time 15 min
Serving Size 16
Recipe Type

Rangalur Pitha is a traditional Bengali steamed sweet made from rice flour and filled with coconut and jaggery. Prepared especially during harvest festivals, it reflects Bengal’s deep-rooted pitha tradition—older than dairy-based sweets and closely tied to agrarian rituals. Soft, gently sweet, and fragrant, this pitha carries the taste of new rice, seasonal abundance, and festive memory, shaped by generations of ceremonial cooking.

Ingredients

For the filling:

Coconut (freshly grated) – 100g
Khejerur patali (date palm jaggery in solid form) – 100g

For the dough:

Hot water – 150ml
Salt – 2g
Rice flour – 100g
Sweet potatoes – 1 medium sized

For the sauce:

whole milk – 500 ml
Khejerur patali – 100g

Method

Method:

To make the filling, mix together grated coconut and date palm jaggery in a pan. Set it on a medium heat and cook for about 10 minutes until nutty. Set aside. For the filling, peel and boil the sweet potato. When tender, drain from water, and mash it lump-free.
For our choux-pastry-like dough, set your pan on low-heat. Add water and season it with salt.
Once the water comes to a boil, add in the rice flour all at once.
Roughly mix it and cover the pan for 5 mins.
After that, open the pan and mix until the dough comes together. Add in the sweet mashed potato.
Remove from the heat onto your workbench. Using wet palms knead the dough until smooth. Divide the dough into 16 portions of about 15 g each.
Fill each dumpling and shape it like a gujjiya first and then pinch the corners to make sharp ends resembling a triangle. Ensure that the dough is covered with a damp cloth at all times (before and after filling)
Bring the milk to a boil in another large pot and then turn off the heat and allow it to cool for 5 minutes before adding the date palm jaggery. Cover and allow it to melt in the residual heat. This is asafeguar against milk splitting, since date palm jaggery may have impurities that can curdle hot milk.
Now add the dumplings into the pot of milk and jaggery and cover and cook for 15 minutes on a low heat.
Eat this fresh, preferably on the same day.

Find out more about the history and tradition of the dish

In India, ragi has been found in archaeological excavations dating back to 1800 BC, and has been associated with honouring poets with a concoction of ragi, milk, and honey.

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