Many kinds of pithas(cake)are made in Bangladesh. Pithas are primarily made from a battar of rice flour,which is shaped and optionally filled with sweet or savory ingredients.
For stuffed vegetable pithas, ingredients such as cauliflower, cabbage radish, or potato are usually fried, baked, or steamed, and then mashed, cooled, and formed into small balls to stuff into the pithas.
Sweet pithas typically include sugar, jaggery, date juice, or palm syrup and can be filled with grated coconut, cashews, pistachios, sweetened vegetables, or fruits. Sweet pithas are also often flavored using cardamom or camphor.
Depending on the type of pitha being prepared, pithas can be fried in oil or ghee, slow-roasted over a fire, steamed, or baked and rolled over a hot plate.
Pithas are often eaten at small meals such as breakfast or as a snack with tea, although there are many sweet varieties that are reserved for desserts or holidays.
Some of the most common pithas found in Bangladesh include the following:
- Chitui/chitoi piṭha
- Teler pitha (oil pitha)
- Bhapa piṭha
- Pakan piṭha
- Puli piṭha
- Beni piṭha
- Dudher piṭha (milk pitha)
- Bhija piṭha (wet pitha)
- Chôndro puli
- Muger puli
- Dudh puli
- Paṭi shapta
- Mug pakon
- Gokul
- Chui Pitha or Chutki Pitha
- Til Pitha
