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Gajak is a sweet, dry snack with North Indian origins, made with sesame seeds and jaggery. Although thinly layered squares of gajak can be stored for a few months, the snack is most commonly consumed in the winter months since it is a part of typical Indian festive cuisine.
It is usually prepared around the harvest time and consumed at festivals such as Pongal. Flavorful and nutritious, gajak has many variations depending on the region, so in South India it is shaped into balls, and in North India, jaggery is sometimes substituted with sugar.
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Gujiya is a popular North Indian sweet pastry that is traditionally enjoyed during the Holi festival. These crescent-shaped treats are made with thinly rolled dough and a filling consisting of khoya (dried evaporated milk) and chopped nuts such as almonds, cashews, and pistachios.
The dough can be made with all-purpose flour and semolina, while the fillings can sometimes include dry fruit, desiccated coconut, and cardamom. Gujiya can be baked or deep-fried. It is similar and often compared to karanji—a deep-fried Maharashtran pastry usually filled with coconut, poppy seeds, and nuts.
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Agra petha is a type of candied gourd often called the signature candy of the city of Agra. It is made from candied ash gourd, known as white pumpkin, wax gourd, white gourd, winter gourd, tallow gourd, or ash pumpkin. The gourd is cut into chunks that are soaked in a lime solution and are then doused in flavored syrups, creating a sweet treat with a crunchy exterior and a chewy center.
This local petha variety is available in various flavors, such as saffron, coconut, or chocolate. It can be bought at numerous shops and stalls that are dispersed throughout the city. Petha was allegedly created by the royal chefs during the construction of the grand Taj Mahal.
Matka kulfi is a traditional frozen dessert that's much denser and creamier than your standard ice cream. It's usually prepared with a combination of full fat milk, malai cream, almonds, saffron, pistachios, cashews, and sugar. In order to make matka mulfi, milk and cream are boiled while stirring, and after a short while, the sugar, chopped almonds, cashews, and pistachios are added to the mix, which is boiled until the milk thickens.
Once cooled, the mixture is poured into cups and frozen. Before serving, matka kulfi is garnished with nuts for a nicer visual presentation.
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Churma is a north Indian dish that is mainly prepared with various types of crumbled bread. It is especially popular in Rajasthan where it is made with baati (bati) bread, and Haryana, where the locals opt for roti, paratha, or puri.
The fine crumbs are then mixed with ghee, sugar, cardamom, and (often) various nuts or, occasionally, dry fruits. The dish is usually finished off with melted ghee. In Rajasthan, churma is mostly enjoyed as a part of a dish named dal bati churma—a delicious combination of churma, dal, and baati bread.
MOST ICONIC Churma
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These flower-shaped cookies are prepared with a thin batter which consists of rice flour, eggs, and coconut milk. They are made with specialized achu molds which are heated, then dipped and coated in batter, before the cookies are deep-fried until golden and crispy.
Achappam cookies originate from Kerala, where they are usually associated with Christian communities, but similar sweets are found in other Asian countries. It is believed that all of them were modeled on traditional Dutch cookies known as rosette or struva.
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Panjiri is a popular Indian dessert consisting of whole-wheat flour, ghee, sugar, dried fruits, and herbal gums. It is traditionally offered to new mothers after delivery because panjiri is also regarded as a nutritional supplement. The dish is especially popular during winter, since it is believed that panjiri will ward off colds.
There are numerous variations on the dish with added ingredients such as lotus seeds, melon seeds, dried coconut, ginger, or poppy seeds.
MOST ICONIC Panjiri
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Kalakand is a traditional dessert that's also popular in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In its basic version, this rich cake is made with a reduced combination of sweetened condensed milk and fresh curd cheese such as paneer or chhena. The combination is stirred and cooked until thick and moist, and it's then often mixed with cardamom powder, saffron, rose water, sugar, and dried fruit, or topped with nuts such as cashews, almonds, or pistachios.
Kalakand is left to set in the fridge and it's then cut into slices before serving. This dessert is especially popular during festivals such as Diwali, Navaratri, or Holi.
Rajbhog is a traditional dessert based on Indian cottage cheese that is filled with a mixture of nuts such as almonds and pistachios, green cardamom powder, saffron, and, sometimes, mawa (dried milk solids). Considered a regional variation of the Indian sweet called rasgulla, this dessert is made by combining paneer or chhana, flour, and semolina into smooth balls, which are then filled with the flavored nut mixture before they are carefully added to a pot of hot sugar syrup to cook until tender and spongy.
Rajbhog is often enhanced with golden food coloring and rose water. This dessert is both a common sweet treat enjoyed after meals and a festive delicacy prepared for various celebratory occasions.
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Bebinca is a traditional layered cake from Goa, where it's originally been made under Portuguese culinary influence. The cake is made with a combination of flour, ghee, sugar, coconut milk, and egg yolks. The preparation process is a long and laborious one – each layer of the batter is spread on a grill or baked in the oven, and the following layers are then stacked on top of one another.
Half of the batter is sometimes enriched with caramel, which changes the color to a slightly darker one, resulting in visibly different alternate layers. The layers often range from 7 to 16, which is the only acceptable number of layers for bebinca purists.
TasteAtlas food rankings are based on the ratings of the TasteAtlas audience, with a series of mechanisms that recognize real users and that ignore bot, nationalist or local patriotic ratings, and give additional value to the ratings of users that the system recognizes as knowledgeable. For the “22 Worst Rated Indian Desserts” list until March 26, 2025, 2,206 ratings were recorded, of which 1,410 were recognized by the system as legitimate. TasteAtlas Rankings should not be seen as the final global conclusion about food. Their purpose is to promote excellent local foods, instill pride in traditional dishes, and arouse curiosity about dishes you haven’t tried.