When you think of Indian sweets sugar, the granulated, crystalline sweetener used in desserts like jalebi, barfi, and laddoo. Also known as white sugar, it’s the backbone of India’s sweet tradition—but it’s not the only kind that matters. Many home cooks assume all sugar is the same, but that’s not true. In Indian kitchens, the type of sugar you use changes everything—the texture, the flavor, even how long the sweet lasts. From the deep molasses notes of jaggery, unrefined cane sugar pressed into blocks, commonly called gur. Also known as gur, it’s the secret behind rich, earthy sweets like chikki and tilgul to the fine, silky texture of powdered sugar, used for dusting and binding sweets like mysore pak and rasgulla. Also known as icing sugar, it dissolves fast and gives that melt-in-mouth finish, each has its place. Choosing the wrong one won’t just ruin the taste—it can make your barfi grainy or your gulab jamun fall apart.
Why does this matter? Because Indian sweets aren’t just sugar and milk. They’re about balance. Jaggery adds warmth and depth, but it’s too strong for delicate sweets like rasgulla. Powdered sugar blends smoothly but lacks the caramel edge that jalebi needs. Even granulated white sugar has variations—some brands are finer, some coarser, and that affects how they melt in hot syrup. If you’ve ever made a sweet that turned out too hard or too sticky, the sugar was probably the culprit. It’s not your technique—it’s the ingredient. And in places like Gujarat, Bengal, or Uttar Pradesh, grandmothers don’t just measure sugar by the cup—they choose it by the season, the occasion, and the tradition. Diwali sweets? Jaggery. Wedding barfi? Fine white sugar. Monsoon laddoos? Coarse sugar for crunch. These aren’t random choices—they’re rooted in centuries of trial and taste.
What you’ll find in the posts below isn’t just recipes. It’s the real talk about sugar in Indian sweets: which type works for which sweet, how to substitute if you’re out of jaggery, why some sweets need granulated sugar and others demand powdered, and how to avoid the one mistake that ruins half the batch. No fluff. No theory. Just what works in the kitchen, day after day, in homes across India.
Indian sweets rely on jaggery, white sugar, and sugar syrup-not white granulated sugar alone. Learn which sweetener to use for each classic dessert and why substitutions fail.
