Desert City Original · Hand-Pulled Sugar Threads
Pashmak
Photo: Alpha (Flickr user 10559879@N00) / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
It looks just like machine-spun cotton candy, but traditional pashmak is entirely hand-pulled — a cooked sugar-and-roasted-flour paste stretched and folded by hand into fine threads, closer to taffy-pulling than a candy-floss machine.
A cooked paste of sugar and roasted sesame or wheat flour is repeatedly pulled and folded by hand until it separates into fine, silky threads, sometimes flavored with saffron, rosewater, or pistachio. Long a specialty of Yazd's confectioners, it's now sold in bazaar shops and at festivals nationwide.
Why it's made this way: Pashmak originated in Yazd during the Safavid era, and even though it has since spread across Iran, the city remains the sweet's most-cited hometown and biggest exporter.
More from Iran
Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
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