Make merry with sweet treats from across India

Crunchy, crumbly, layered, rich, sweet and delicious—there's much to explore in regional treats that are part of this festive season

- Joanna Lobo

Naga dougnuts; and (below) 'kuswar' is a platter.of rose cookies, marzipan, 'kukuls' and more.

A lasting memory of my Christmases in Goa is of the family sitting around a table making kulkuls. We would take small balls of dough and painstakingly roll them out on cleaned and sterilised combs and forks to get that customary curled shape. The amount of time it took to make them was indirectly proportional to the eating time: the crisp, deep-fried sweets make for an addictive snack.

Food, especially sweets, has always been a big part of my Christmas celebrations. Our Goan Catholic sweets platter called kuswar has something for everyone: crisp rose cookies, rich rum fruit cakes, delicate marzipan and milk cream, chewy letri, soft doce, and the wobbly dodol.

Beyond the Catholics in Goa, here are a few traditional Christmas sweets found across the country, made in people’s homes and sometimes available in stores and bakeries.

At the Dias home in Mumbai, a Christmas sweet that always graced the table was Allahabadi cake. The spiced, rich cake made with ghee was a regular feature among the Anglo Indians in Allahabad. “It was made with ghee because butter wasn’t easily available and was expensive, and it had petha (candied ash gourd) instead of candied citrus peels,” says home chef Ann Dias, whose mother, Gladys Myrtle Harbour-Lobo, was well-known for her baked goods, especially the Allahabadi cake. Dias has continued the tradition, taking orders for sweets in Mumbai. Her repertoire includes coco rocks, rose cookies, nankhatais, fudge, milk toffee and more, but the Allahabadi cake is only made for family.