Til Gur Gajak and Rewri: What One Piece Gives, Sugar Included

Verdict: til gur gajak and rewri are sesame brittle, a pleasant winter sweet with a little calcium, not a health food. One gajak piece from a 40-piece batch gives about 65 kcal and 5 g of sugar; one small rewri gives about 25 kcal and 2 g of sugar. The arithmetic, the white-til catch and the safety notes for children and diabetes are below.

Lohri bonfires, a paper cone of rewri, a brick of gajak from Morena or Meerut. Til and gur together are the taste of December across Punjab and north India, and every winter the same forward arrives on WhatsApp: “til gur keeps the body warm and gives calcium”. Half of that holds up. Which half?

What one piece of til gajak or rewri actually gives

The raw batch weighs about 515 g, and since a little water boils off the gur while it cooks down to the hard stage, the finished weight is closer to 500 g. Split 40 ways, each gajak holds roughly 6 g til, 6 g gur and a smear of ghee. A rewri is the same mix in a piece two and a half times smaller.

The sums, from standard food-composition tables and rounded: unhulled til is roughly 570 kcal, 18 g protein, 50 g fat and close to 1,000 mg calcium per 100 g. Hulled white til keeps only something like 60 to 130 mg of that calcium. Gur is about 380 kcal and 80 to 85 g sugar per 100 g, with 40 to 80 mg calcium that varies by batch. Ghee is 900 kcal. So the batch carries about 2,500 kcal, 210 g sugar, 140 g fat and, with unhulled til, around 2,600 mg calcium. Divide by 40 or by 100 and you have the table. A day’s calcium for an adult is taken here as 1,000 mg.

Iron? Small. With unhulled til each gajak has roughly 1 mg, about 5% of a woman’s day, and gur’s share varies so much with the pan it was boiled in that nobody can promise a figure.

What the til, the gur and the ghee are each doing

• Til: the only part with real nutrition. Healthy fats, some protein, and calcium only if the seed kept its husk. Our sesame seeds and til oil guide explains the black, brown and white types.
• Gur: glue. It sets as a brittle when boiled to the hard stage. To your blood sugar it behaves like sugar, as the gur guide explains.
• Ghee: a tablespoon greases the pan and softens the bite. It adds only about 3 kcal to each gajak.

Myth: til gur is a winter calcium tonic

The “warming” idea comes from tradition. In both Unani and Ayurveda, til and gur are counted as hot foods for cold months, and that’s a fair description of how a sweet, fatty snack feels on a foggy morning. Calcium is the part that gets stretched. A halwai’s gajak is nearly always made with white hulled til because it looks cleaner and cracks crisper, and that seed has shed most of its calcium with the husk.

So a plate of shop rewri is mostly gur. Tasty gur. If you want the calcium, it has to be black or brown til, and even then two gajak pieces give about what a third of a glass of milk gives.

Making gajak or rewri at home

Gur is the tricky part. Too little boiling and the brittle stays chewy. Too long? Burnt and bitter.

1. Dry roast 250 g til on low heat for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring, until the seeds puff slightly and smell nutty. A few may pop. Tip them onto a plate at once so they don’t keep cooking.
2. Break 250 g gur into small pieces. Melt it with 1 tablespoon (15 g) ghee and 2 tablespoons water in a heavy kadhai on low to medium heat.
3. Let it bubble for 6 to 8 minutes. Test by dropping a bead into a katori of cold water: it should turn hard and snap cleanly. If it bends, keep going for another minute and test again.
4. Take the pan off the heat, stir in the til quickly and pour onto a greased tray or steel thali.
5. For gajak, roll it flat to about 5 mm with a greased rolling pin and score 40 squares while it’s still warm. For rewri, pinch off 5 g pieces and roll them into small discs before the mixture hardens.
6. Cool fully, break along the scores and store airtight for up to 3 weeks. In humid weather it goes sticky; the fridge helps. Sniff before eating. Til oil that smells like old paint or crayons has gone rancid, so throw the batch out.

What changes if you use less gur or more til

• Swap to unhulled black or brown til: the single change that matters. Calcium rises about six-fold with no extra sugar.
• More til, less gur (300 g til, 200 g gur): the brittle still sets, a little crumblier. Each gajak drops to about 4 g sugar and rises to about 70 mg calcium with unhulled seeds.
• Much less gur (below about 175 g for 250 g til): the brittle won’t bind and falls apart. The gur is structural, so there’s a floor.
• White sugar in place of gur: almost identical sugar and calories. Gur’s extra minerals are tiny at this portion.
• Added peanuts (50 g crushed): more protein and crunch, and a new allergy to flag.

Who should go easy on til gur

Cheaper ways to get the same or more

• A glass of milk: about 250 to 300 mg calcium, more than four gajak pieces made with black til, without the sugar.
• A katori of dahi: 150 to 200 mg calcium.
• A teaspoon of roasted black til on roti or salad: about 30 to 40 mg calcium and no gur at all.

More winter sweets and mixes are weighed up in Desi Remedies, including the bajra, gur and til laddoo, which is softer and easier for older children.

Gajak and rewri questions people ask