Baked Handvo
Gujarat's savoury lentil-rice cake with grated lauki, baked until the crust is crisp and the inside moist. Four dals in the batter make it the most protein-varied snack in the chapter.
- Region
- Gujarat
- Status
- Traditional; oven-baked (the handvo cooker or a kadhai are equally traditional)
- Diet label
- Strictly vegetarian, egg-free
- Time
- Soak 4 h · Ferment 6–8 h · Prep 15 min · Bake 45 min
- Serves
- 6 (1 square, about 150 g, each)
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Good for
- Tea-time, tiffin, travel
- Tags
- Good source · Meal-prep friendly · Soy-free · Whey-free · Gluten-free*
- Allergens
- Milk (curd), sesame
Nutrition (estimated)
- Calories
- 210 kcal
- Protein
- 9 g
- Carbs
- 30 g
- Fat
- 6 g
- Fibre
- 5 g
Headline values are per serving, as written.
| kcal | Protein | Carbs | Fat | Sat fat | Fibre | Total sugars | Protein per 100 kcal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per serving | 210 | 9 g | 30 g | 6 g | 1 g | 5 g | 3 g | 4.0 g |
Good source. Contains 5 g sugar for the whole batch. Values checked against IFCT 2017 on 14 Oct 2026.
Ingredients
- 100 g rice · 50 g toor dal · 50 g chana dal · 25 g urad dal · 25 g yellow moong dal
- 150 g curd · 200 g lauki, grated and squeezed · 60 g carrot, grated · 50 g green peas
- 1 tbsp ginger-green chilli paste · ½ tsp turmeric · 5 g sugar · 6 g salt · ½ tsp baking soda
- Tempering: 20 g groundnut oil · 1 tsp mustard seeds · 10 g sesame seeds · 10 curry leaves · pinch of hing
Method
- Soak rice and dals together 4 hours. Drain and grind coarsely with the curd (like fine rava). Ferment 6–8 hours.
- Mix in lauki, carrot, peas, ginger-chilli paste, turmeric, sugar and salt.
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Grease a 20 × 20 cm tin with 5 g of the oil.
- Heat the remaining oil; add mustard seeds, sesame, curry leaves and hing. Pour half into the batter with the baking soda and stir well.
- Pour the batter into the tin; drizzle the remaining tempering over the top.
- Bake 40–45 minutes until deep golden and a skewer comes out clean. Rest 10 minutes; cut into 6 squares.
Protein optimisation
- Four dals supply 5.5 g per serving; rice 1 g; curd 1 g; peas and sesame 1 g.
- Boost: reduce rice to 70 g and add 30 g more toor dal (+1 g protein per serving, slightly denser texture), or serve with 100 g curd (+3.5 g protein, +60 kcal).
Variations, serving and storage
- Regional: Parsi-style tavethi — similar batter cooked as thick pancakes on a tawa.
- Substitution: ready handvo flour (label-dependent nutrition).
- Storage: 3 days refrigerated; freezes 1 month.
- Food safety: refrigerate cut squares once cool.
- Meal prep: excellent.
Nutrition values are estimates calculated from the Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 (ICMR-NIN) and typical product labels. They have not been laboratory-analysed and will vary with your ingredients, brands and cooking. Recipes are for healthy adults and are general information only, not a substitute for advice from a doctor or qualified dietitian. If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, cooking for children, have food allergies, or live with kidney disease, diabetes or any other medical condition, please take professional advice about your diet. From the collection Protein-Rich India by Dr. Shantanu Deshpande · drshantanudeshpande.com