Dharwad Pedha Milk Sweet Karnataka GI Tag

Dharwad Pedha is a GI-tagged milk sweet from Dharwad district of Karnataka, considered one of the finest milk-reduced sweets of India. The pedha is made by slow-cooking full-fat buffalo milk with sugar in open kadhai vessels, stirring continuously to reduce to a thick granular khova, then shaping into flat discs and coating with fine crystallised sugar. The characteristic Dharwad Pedha is brownish — not white — because the milk solids are allowed to caramelise slightly during reduction, creating a nutty, slightly burnt-milk flavour distinct from the pale khova peda of other regions. The Thakur family of Dharwad are credited as the hereditary pedha makers who perfected the recipe and established the Dharwad identity of the sweet over 150 years. Dharwad Pedha received a GI tag in 2007. The sweet is famous in Karnataka, Goa, and Maharashtra and is carried by travellers as a regional souvenir. The pedha industry in Dharwad employs several hundred dairy-processing families. Dharwad city has multiple shops along the central market selling fresh pedha, with the oldest shops claiming lineage to the original Thakur family recipe. Domestic buyers purchase Dharwad Pedha as wedding and festival mithai.