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.
