8 unique Christmas sweets from across India and how to order them

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.

ALLAHABADI CAKE
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.

BRAZO DE MERCEDES

The first time Ellery Logronio Rosales tasted this popular Filipino Christmas sweet—Brazo de Mercedes is a meringue roll with a custard filling—she ate five slices. She was in high school in Davao City, Philippines at the time. “It melts in your mouth like cotton, plus the creamy custard in the middle hits the spot with the sweetness,” says Rosales. Now married (to a Kulkarni) and settled in Goa, Rosales has a home chef venture with other Filipino women—yes, they make brazo too.

NEURIS

Growing up in Gundavali village in Andheri, Mumbai, Averil Fernandes recalls eating a sweet that was, and is, only made at home. “We called them butterfly neuris or layered neuris because they were layered and filled with a stuffing of mawa, semolina, rose water, cashew, and raisins,” says Fernandes, who runs Averil’s Bakehouse in Mumbai. Also called mawa pattices, these sweet puff pastries use a mixture of ghee and cornflour as a roux between layers. Catholic homes across India make different versions of neuris. In Caroline D’Souza’s Mangalorean home, they are a love language. The neuri (karanji) here is a crescent-shaped dumpling filled with white sesame seeds, copra (dried coconut), cardamom and sugar. “There’s always an element of surprise when you bite into one that has dried fruits and nuts,” adds D’Souza, who is a conservation architect and co-founder of the Coastal Heritage Collective in Mangaluru.

CHRISTMAS PLUM CAKE

Plum cake is a staple treat in Kerala, particularly among the plantation communities. It is a cake that married British influences with Indian ingredients to create what has now become a signature cake from the state with fruits (figs, orange peel, raisins, dates, cranberries) soaked in rum or wine and spices.

CHHANGBAN

The one sweet people look forward to during Christmas in Mizoram is chhangban. “It is made from sticky rice that is soaked overnight, hand-pounded into a powder, wrapped in banana leaves and then steamed,” says Mapuiii Khiangte, an events manager. “People usually gather after Christmas Mass, and eat chhangban, with kurtai (jaggery) and black tea,” adds Josie Paris Renthlei of Josie’s Kitchen in Mumbai. Some variations of chhangban have sesame seeds, and the steamed ones are cut into pieces and fried.

NAGA DOUGHNUTS
In Nagaland, Christmas is when doughnuts make their appearance. Made with maida, butter, baking powder, sugar and eggs, and deep-fried in ghee, it has a sweet powdery bite. While growing up in Dimapur, Vizo Achet remembers making them in huge batches sitting around the fireplace with her mother and cousins. “And then anyone visiting us during Christmas would get a plate of these doughnuts with a cup of hot tea. It was the same if we visited any other house,” says Achet, a telecom engineer turned homemaker based in Bengaluru now. Home bakers in Dimapur such as Eli Bongen, who runs Alila Homemade, accept orders for this unique sweet treat.

SAKKIN GATA AND JAKKEP
Winter treats in Meghalaya are made using sticky rice, jaggery and roasted sesame. “Sakkin gata is made with sticky rice powder, ground sesame and jaggery. This is stacked in layers, like the bebinca, and then steamed in banana leaves,” says Nime Sangma, a home baker in Tura, Meghalaya. The final dish is a layer of white and black, which can be sweet or salty. Another traditional dish, made using the same ingredients is jakkep, a pancake with a filling of sesame seeds and jaggery.

THALI SWEET
One of the sweet highlights on chef Freny Fernandes’ East Indian Christmas platter is the thali sweet. “It is a coconut cake, made in a thali and steamed on the stove,” says Fernandes, who runs Freny’s All Day Dining & Bar in Mumbai. “It is made of semolina, eggs, sugar, cream and freshly grated coconut. Back when there were no ovens, people would make this directly on the stove. As refined flour wasn’t readily available or just wasn’t native to us, people would use rawa.”

HOW TO ORDER

Naga Doughnuts at Alila Homemade, Dimapur: 8837006747

Goan sweets at The Goan Kitchen, Goa: thegoankitchen.com

East Indian sweets with a twist at Freny’s, Mumbai: 7039012123

Plantation cakes at Kallivayalil Bakes: 9207 225224; Taranaki at Vanilla County, Kottayam district: 9778257747

Brazo at Elle’s Kitchen, Goa: 7888063006

Joanna Lobo is a Goa-based journalist.