Bakerkhani is a thick, round, flaky flatbread with a golden crust, baked in a clay tandoor.
Originating during Mughal times, the Bakerkhani has evolved in Kashmir into a popular afternoon snack, usually enjoyed with salted pink tea.
Tourist Tip
Buy it fresh from a local neighborhood kandur (baker) in the afternoon.
Bakerkhani is the aristocrat of the kandur's tandoor: a round, sesame-crusted bread built from many ghee-brushed layers that bake up crisp and shatter like rough puff pastry. It looks like a naan and eats like a biscuit — more pastry than bread, made for slow mornings and long conversations over noon chai.
Waza Tips
Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt, rub in 2 tbsp ghee, then knead with warm milk to a smooth, medium-firm dough, about 8 minutes. Cover and rest 45–60 minutes until relaxed and slightly risen.
Divide into 4. Working with one piece, roll it out as thin as you can — a rough sheet 2 mm thick or less; the kandur stretches the sheet repeatedly by hand.
Brush the whole sheet generously with softened ghee and dust with a fine veil of flour (the flour keeps the layers separate as they bake).
Roll the sheet up into a tight rope, then coil the rope into a snail-shell spiral, tucking the end underneath. Rest the coils 15 minutes — this rest is what lets you flatten them without tearing the layers.
Press and roll each coil gently back into a round about 12–14 cm across and 1 cm thick, keeping the spiral structure intact rather than rolling it thin again.
Dock the surface lightly with a fork or knife point, brush with milk, and press sesame seeds thickly over the top.
In the tandoor these bake against the wall until deep gold and crisp through. At home: bake on a preheated steel or heavy tray at 200°C for 18–25 minutes until evenly golden and rigid — a done bakerkhani feels light for its size and taps hollow-crisp.
Cool 10 minutes before eating; the layers set and crispen as steam escapes. Store airtight up to a week and re-crisp in a low oven.
The tandoor gives bakerkhani fierce wall contact plus radiant heat from the coals; a home oven's gentler, even heat actually suits this bread better than the other kandur loaves, because the layers need time to dry and set. Use a baking steel or heavy tray preheated at 200°C, keep the bread in the lower-middle of the oven so the sesame top does not scorch before the core crisps, and resist opening the door in the first 15 minutes. The result is very close to the bakery original, if slightly less smoky; a 30-second pass under the broiler at the end recovers some of the tandoor's toasted-sesame char.
Serve with noon chai, broken and eaten slowly — it is the bread of unhurried company. Also sent, by tradition, on trays to in-laws for engagements and births, alongside other kandur specialties.
Thirty-six courses, one copper trami — the feast Kashmir is named for.
Begin the feastA concierge that has eaten everywhere and slept nowhere — ask it anything about Kashmir.
Not a list — a seating. Scroll, and be walked from table to table.
Where Srinagar has eaten since 1918.
A century-old dining room on Residency Road that taught generations what a proper Rogan Josh should taste like. Unhurried, unchanged, unmistakable.
Enter the dining room
The wedding feast, every single day.
Wazas work the copper degs from dawn — the same courses served at Kashmiri weddings, plated for a table of two. Gushtaba here ends arguments.
Enter the dining room
The art of dining, facing the Zabarwan.
Modern Kashmiri fine dining — heritage recipes composed like paintings, served in a room of walnut wood and candlelight beneath the mountains.
Enter the dining room
Dinner beside the still water.
A boulevard institution where houseboat lights flicker across your table. Come at dusk, order Yakhni, and let the lake do the talking.
Enter the dining room
The tash-naer comes to you before the food — warm water poured over your hands. Nothing touches the rice before the water touches you.
The trami feeds four. Your wedge is yours alone; the far side belongs to a stranger — and to their trust in you.
No hand reaches before the senior one. Rank at the trami is measured in years, never in wealth.
The last course is the host's honour, pounded smooth by hand for hours. Declining it ends more than the meal.
Every pass and valley crossing in Kashmir, mapped by distance, altitude and the stops worth slowing down for. Drive one now — without leaving your seat.
One road, one steady climb into the meadow.
43.5 km · 1.5 hrs
The same valley, four different masterpieces. Watch it turn.
The valley wakes in tulips.
Mustard fields run gold to the mountains; mornings smell of blossom and wet earth.
Meadows climb to the snowline.
Rivers loud with meltwater, shepherds moving higher, days that refuse to end.
The chinars catch fire.
Orchards heavy with apples; every avenue burns amber, copper and rust.
Snow rewrites the valley.
Frozen lakes, pine forests hushed white, kangri embers glowing indoors.
No matter when you arrive, Kashmir has another story waiting.
Explore Kashmir
Honeymoons, one-day loops, hidden valleys, the best Wazwan near Dal Lake — Waza is the intelligence behind everything you just scrolled through.
Bakerkhani is a thick, round, flaky flatbread with a golden crust, baked in a clay tandoor.
Originating during Mughal times, the Bakerkhani has evolved in Kashmir into a popular afternoon snack, usually enjoyed with salted pink tea.
Tourist Tip
Buy it fresh from a local neighborhood kandur (baker) in the afternoon.
Bakerkhani is the aristocrat of the kandur's tandoor: a round, sesame-crusted bread built from many ghee-brushed layers that bake up crisp and shatter like rough puff pastry. It looks like a naan and eats like a biscuit — more pastry than bread, made for slow mornings and long conversations over noon chai.
Waza Tips
Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt, rub in 2 tbsp ghee, then knead with warm milk to a smooth, medium-firm dough, about 8 minutes. Cover and rest 45–60 minutes until relaxed and slightly risen.
Divide into 4. Working with one piece, roll it out as thin as you can — a rough sheet 2 mm thick or less; the kandur stretches the sheet repeatedly by hand.
Brush the whole sheet generously with softened ghee and dust with a fine veil of flour (the flour keeps the layers separate as they bake).
Roll the sheet up into a tight rope, then coil the rope into a snail-shell spiral, tucking the end underneath. Rest the coils 15 minutes — this rest is what lets you flatten them without tearing the layers.
Press and roll each coil gently back into a round about 12–14 cm across and 1 cm thick, keeping the spiral structure intact rather than rolling it thin again.
Dock the surface lightly with a fork or knife point, brush with milk, and press sesame seeds thickly over the top.
In the tandoor these bake against the wall until deep gold and crisp through. At home: bake on a preheated steel or heavy tray at 200°C for 18–25 minutes until evenly golden and rigid — a done bakerkhani feels light for its size and taps hollow-crisp.
Cool 10 minutes before eating; the layers set and crispen as steam escapes. Store airtight up to a week and re-crisp in a low oven.
The tandoor gives bakerkhani fierce wall contact plus radiant heat from the coals; a home oven's gentler, even heat actually suits this bread better than the other kandur loaves, because the layers need time to dry and set. Use a baking steel or heavy tray preheated at 200°C, keep the bread in the lower-middle of the oven so the sesame top does not scorch before the core crisps, and resist opening the door in the first 15 minutes. The result is very close to the bakery original, if slightly less smoky; a 30-second pass under the broiler at the end recovers some of the tandoor's toasted-sesame char.
Serve with noon chai, broken and eaten slowly — it is the bread of unhurried company. Also sent, by tradition, on trays to in-laws for engagements and births, alongside other kandur specialties.
