Diwali sweets are sometimes wrapped with vark, a delicate edible silver foil. Also spelled varak, varaq, or warq, it is used as a glittering garnish on sweets across the Indian subcontinent.
Vark is made by hammering very pure silver into exceptionally thin sheets, typically less than one micrometre thick. The fragile foil is supported between sheets of paper or another food-safe material, then carefully transferred onto sweets such as barfi, kaju katli, peda, and ladoo. It is essentially flavorless, so its role is visual and ceremonial rather than culinary.
The custom is especially associated with festive and celebratory foods, including Diwali offerings and gift boxes. The word ultimately comes through Persian from Arabic waraق, meaning a leaf, sheet, or paper. Gold leaf may also be used, but silver is the familiar decoration in Indian mithai.
Vark is not the same as khoya, ghee, or paan. Khoya is concentrated milk solid, ghee is clarified butter, and paan is a betel-leaf preparation. Food-safety and ethical concerns have also encouraged machine-made, vegetarian production instead of older methods involving animal tissue.