Indian & South Asian desserts

To call this one cuisine is a simplification — the dessert traditions of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal contain more variety than many continents. But certain through-lines run across most of it. The fundamental ingredients are milk (slow-reduced into khoya, rabri, chhena), ghee, jaggery, cardamom, rosewater, saffron, and nuts — almonds, cashews, pistachios.

The category divides loosely into the milk-based sweets of the east and north (Bengali sandesh and rasgulla, Punjabi gulab jamun, Lucknowi shahi tukda), the syrup-soaked grain or flour sweets of the north and west (jalebi, balushahi, mysore pak), the rice-and-milk puddings of the south (payasam, kheer), and the dry fudges and ladoos that travel well and are exchanged at every festival (kaju katli, besan ladoo, soan papdi).

Festivals organise the calendar: ladoos for Diwali, gulab jamun for Eid, modaks for Ganesh Chaturthi, sandesh and rasgulla for any reason at all in Kolkata.