Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Kurma
Crunchy fried sticks of ginger-spiced dough tumbled in a hard sugar glaze, a Trinidadian Indo-Caribbean sweet.
Trinidadian · easy · serves 8
prep 25 min · cook 20 min
~325 cal · 5g protein · 75g carbs · 1g fat · 1g fiber · 38g sugars · 0g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Kurma is a much-loved Trinidadian sweet snack of Indian origin, brought by the indentured labourers who arrived from the 1840s and became a cornerstone of the island's culture and kitchen. It appears at Divali, Eid, weddings, and prayers, and in cellophane packets at every corner shop.
It is simple food: a stiff dough of flour and ginger, rolled and cut into short sticks, deep-fried until crunchy, then tossed in a sugar syrup that cools to a brittle, frosted glaze. Some versions lean into cinnamon or elaichi ().
Sweet, crisp, and just a little spicy from the ginger, kurma is the kind of treat that turns up by the bowlful at celebrations and disappears just as fast, a small piece of Trinidad's Indo-Caribbean heritage you can hold in your hand.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and dairy-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 8
3 cups flour
2 tbsp fresh ginger, grated
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
for frying oil, for frying
Instructions
1
Mix the flour with the grated ginger, a pinch of salt, and enough water to make a stiff dough.
2
Roll out thin, cut into short sticks, and fry over medium heat until cooked through but barely coloured. Lift them out, let them cool a little, then raise the heat and fry them a second time until they are a rich honey colour.
✎ Chef’s note
Fry them twice, the way you would chips. One long fry drives out the moisture and leaves them hard and dry; frying low then hot gives the light, brittle snap that hard kurma is supposed to have.
3
Make a syrup: boil the sugar with a splash of water and the cinnamon until it is just on the point of threading from the spoon, and take it off there.
✎ Chef’s note
Just short of thread stage, not at it. Carry a plain sugar glaze to a proper thread and it sets before it has coated anything; stop too early and you have a sticky mess. The moment to move is when a thread is only beginning to form.
4
Pour the syrup over the fried sticks and keep turning them until the sugar has gone opaque and set, then spread them apart to cool.
✎ Chef’s note
Keep turning the whole time it sets. That is what throws up the irregular clumps of gingery sugar that make good kurma. This is hard kurma, the crunchy matchstick kind sold in tuck shops and corner shops all over Trinidad; the softer, fatter kind is a richer dough with evaporated milk and cardamom in it and a milk glaze. Hard kurma is better the day after you make it. Soft kurma is best the day you do.
Trinidadian Indo-Caribbean tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Port of Spain. The capital eats two dishes it did not create. Doubles was made in Princes Town in 1936 by Emamool Deen and his wife Raheeman Rasulan Deen and spread north from there; bake and shark belongs to Maracas Bay, thirty kilometres over the mountains. Port of Spain adopted both so completely that most visitors assume otherwise.
🗺️
Trinidad & Tobago. Doubles began in Princes Town, not Port of Spain, and are two soft fried bara breads folded around curried channa with tamarind, cucumber and pepper sauce added to order. The Indian layer in Trinidad arrived with indentured labourers after 1845, the same history that produced Indo-Fijian cooking on the other side of the world.
🌍
North America. North America's table began with Indigenous foodways, the "three sisters" of corn, beans, and squash, plus chiles, tomatoes, and cacao, then layered on colonial, African, and immigrant influences. From Mexico's UNESCO-recognized cuisine to the Cajun and Creole pots of Louisiana and the fiery jerk of the Caribbean, the region turns ancient staples into something new. Barbecue, tacos, gumbo, and mole all carry stories of migration and adaptation.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Trinidad & Tobago
DoublesTwo soft turmeric flatbreads folded around curried chickpeas, tamarind, and pepper sauce, Trinidad’s street-corner breakfast.
PelauA one-pot of caramel-browned chicken, rice, and pigeon peas cooked in coconut milk.
Bake and SharkCrisp fried flatbread split and stuffed with seasoned fried fish and a riot of sauces and salads, a Maracas beach classic.
Browse all Trinidad & Tobago recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Rolling pin.
Storing it: Fried food is best eaten fresh while crisp. Re-crisp leftovers in a hot oven or air fryer; the microwave makes them soft.
Make it a Trinidad & Tobago meal
Trinidadian Curry GoatDinner
Ponche de CrèmeDrink
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Frequently asked questions
What is Kurma?
Crunchy fried sticks of ginger-spiced dough tumbled in a hard sugar glaze, a Trinidadian Indo-Caribbean sweet.
Where does Kurma come from?
Kurma is a Trinidadian dish from Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago.
Can Kurma be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Kurma recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Kurma safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Kurma take to make?
About 45 minutes total (25 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 8.
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