Palm Jaggery

Jaggery is a traditional non-centrifugal cane sugar consumed in Asia, Africa and some countries in the Americas. It is a concentrated product of cane juice and often date or palm sap (see palm sugar) without separation of the molasses and crystals, and can vary from golden brown to dark brown in colour. The vessel is heated for about one hour. Dried wood pulp from the crushed sugar cane is used as fuel for the furnace. While boiling the juice, some lime is added to it so that all the wood particles are collected on top of the juice in a froth during boiling which is skimmed off. Finally the juice is thickened and reduced to nearly one-third of the original volume. This hot liquid is golden in color. It is stirred continuously and lifted with a spatula to observe whether it forms a thread or drips dropwise while falling. If it forms many threads, it has completely thickened. Now it is poured into a shallow flat bottomed tank to cool and solidify. The tank is large enough to allow only a thin coat of this hot liquid to form at its bottom, so as to increase the surface area for quick evaporation and cooling. After cooling down the jaggery becomes a soft solid which is now pressed into the desired shape for selling at the market.