Enjoy Indian Sweets During Diwali

Diwali is a celebration of sweets. It is a time of gifts and hospitality shared with family and relatives. During Diwali, desserts and candies are kept on hand and served all day long when expected or unexpected guests call. Indian sweets finish a meal and are also served as morning or afternoon snacks.

Indian shops are crammed with beautifully packaged Diwali gifts to send to loved-ones far away. Countless temptations wait to be carried home to enhance your own Diwali gifts or serve to visitors throughout the holiday. Here is a list of some delights you'll come across:

• Payasams are essential. Payasams owe their distinctive flavor to jaggery, unrefined sugar, which is not as sweet as refined sugar, but earthy and unusual in character. Payasams come in an endless variety, but simple milk and rice payasams are perfumed with cardamom and saffron, or carrot and cashew generously laced with melted butter.
• Laddu, tiny balls of semolina, flavored with ground cashew nuts and raisins, are delicate additions to your Diwali gifts.
• Sesame toffee is formed into small balls of deliciously toasted sesame seeds and coconut. Buttery peanut toffee is cooked to a harder stage and broken into chunks.
• Paal Mithai translates in English as "Milk Delight." These sweets are a combination of milk, semolina and a lot of butter. They are cut into squares, and they more than live up to their name.
• Burfi, coconut, pistachio or plain, are generous with butter flavor.
• Ras Malari is a homemade cheese often served in a sweetened cream sauce.
• Gulab Jamun is a fried dumpling scented with cardamom and rose water.

Wrap your Diwali gifts in the prettiest fashion, and give recipients the warmest wishes of happiness and enjoyment throughout the festival.

Beyond sweets, invite family and friends to celebrate with a traditional Diwali dinner, which can be vegetarian or an American adaptation with slow-roasted lamb, featuring accompaniments of ginger-tomato chutney, Basmati pulau, finished with mango ice cream. You can also try murg, or butter chicken, redolent of cinnamon, almonds and cashews.

These suggestions of sweet treats offered at Diwali are just an introduction to the joys and pleasures of the holiday. Employ a basic Indian cookbook, and discover a gateway to not only a new celebration but also new contributions to familiar holidays.