Indian sweets change names from one region to the next, and most have two or three English spellings. This guide covers the ones you will see most often, what they are made of, and how they eat.
Milk sweets
Burfi (also barfi) is a dense, fudge-like square made by cooking milk down with sugar and ghee. Plain burfi is flavoured with cardamom; others add pistachio, almond, mango or chocolate. See the burfi range.
Peda is a soft round of reduced milk. Kesar peda carries saffron, Mathura peda is roasted until it turns caramel-brown, and paan peda brings betel leaf and fennel. Try the mix peda box.
Milk cake is milk reduced slowly and set into a slab with a grainy, caramel centre. Dhoda is its darker, fudgier Punjabi cousin, made with wheat and cashew. Kalakand is made from fresh chenna and milk: moist, crumbly and often topped with pistachio.
Cashew and nut sweets
Kaju katli is a thin diamond of ground cashew and sugar, finished with silver leaf, and a favourite for gifting because it holds its shape in a box. Kaju roll wraps cashew around pistachio, and roasted dry fruit burfi packs cashew and mixed nuts with saffron. See the Royal Kaju box.
Ladoo
Ladoo (also laddu or laddoo) are sweets rolled into rounds. Motichoor ladoo are tiny besan pearls fried in ghee and soaked in saffron syrup. Besan ladoo are roasted gram flour with ghee and cardamom, Jodhpuri ladoo add cashew, rose badam ladoo are almond with rose petals, and gond ke ladoo, a winter favourite, use edible gum, wheat and dry fruits. See the ladoo range.
Syrup sweets
Gulab jamun are soft dumplings of chenna and khoya, fried and soaked in rose and cardamom syrup. Serve them warm. Rasgulla are light, spongy chenna balls in a thin syrup, and chum chum (also cham cham) are oval chenna sweets with cream and cardamom. Ras malai (rasmalai) are flat chenna patties soaked in saffron and cardamom milk, served chilled. Try kesar ras malai or the syrup sweets box.
Others worth knowing
Angoori petha are small, translucent sweets made from ash gourd, a speciality of Agra. Boondi, also called budana, is loose fried pearls in saffron syrup, often offered as prasad. Gujiya are crescent pastries filled with khoya and dry fruit, made for Holi. Halwa is a warm, spoonable sweet: gajar ka halwa from carrot, or moong dal halwa from yellow lentils.
A note on spelling
You will see barfi and burfi, ladoo and laddu, rasmalai and ras malai, cham cham and chum chum. They are the same sweets; the spelling depends on who wrote the sign.
Ready to choose? Browse the gift boxes, or read the Diwali sweets guide.
