INDIAN DESSERTS

Indian Desserts and Sweets are always an integral part of Indian delicacies, mainly milk based Desserts carry a predominant place in the Indian cuisine. There is an astonishing variety of Indian Desserts and sweets region wise and have their own speciality of cooking traditionally. Every festivity or occasions at any home, desserts leave a sweet taste in mouth after completing the whole course of meal and every festival or occasion has a predominant significance in preparing the sweet dish. Most of the various desserts and sweets are simple and easy to prepare. Some of the Indian desserts and sweets are rich and rely heavily on sugar, milk or condensed milk, cream and lots of dry fruits.

Indian desserts are very often decorated with cardamom, raisins, almonds, pistachios, cashew nuts and fruit such as mangoes, guavas, pineapple, melon, cherries, oranges and bananas. Mithai means "sweet food". As coconut is a natural ingredient and grown in abundance in the Southern region of India, a wide range of sweets are prepared with coconut and coconut milk like the Coconut Milk Payasam, Coconut Burfi etc. Coconut milk is a fresh, creamy and yummy when used for preparing of sweets.

Rice pudding also popularly known as Kheer is one of the most famous and authentic dessert in India. Normally Kheer or Payasam is a traditional dish and is prepared on most of the auspicious days. There is a wide range of kheer or payasam that popularly includes the: Pal Payasam, Vermicelli Kheer, Paruppu Payasam (made with dal or lentils), Aval Payasam (poha kheer), Sabudana Kheer, Badam Kheer, Gasgase Payasam (made with poppy seeds) etc.

Other Indian dessert includes the Gajar Halwa (carrot dessert), Sooji Halwa (a dessert prepared with semolina), Badam Halwa, Phirni (a milk pudding cooked with ground rice paste and flavored with saffron and green cardamom), Coconut Souffle, Rasmalai, Mango Mousse, Pineapple pudding, Shakarai Pongal, Gulab Jamun, Rasgulla, Badurshah and different variety ladoos and sweets too.