The Mughal sweet course was built on milk rather than sugar. Milk reduced slowly over a fire, thickened with rice, set in earthenware, frozen in cones or poured over fried bread; perfumed with saffron, cardamom and rose; scattered with nuts. Almost all of it was vegetarian from the start. These are the desserts worth knowing.
In this article
Shahi Tukda
“The royal piece”. Bread is fried in ghee until crisp, soaked in sugar syrup, and then covered in rabri — milk reduced for hours until it is thick and layered — with saffron, cardamom and nuts. Tradition attaches it to the Mughal court, and it sits squarely in that style: rich, fragrant and more elaborate than it needs to be. Hyderabad has its own close cousin, double ka meetha.
Ours is Shahi Tukda Taj-e-Zaika, finished with a Banarasi-style rabri foam, and it closes the Mughlai tasting menu.
Phirni
Rice ground coarse, cooked in milk until it sets, sweetened and scented with cardamom and rosewater, and traditionally chilled in small unglazed clay bowls called shikoras, which draw off moisture and give it a faint earthy note. It is a close relative of Persian and Middle Eastern rice puddings, and the most Persian of the Mughal sweets.
Phirni is not on our menu. It is easy to find in Agra, especially around Eid and during Ramzan, when it is made in large quantities.
Zarda
Sweet rice, coloured and scented with saffron and cooked with ghee, sugar, nuts and raisins. The name comes from the Persian zard, yellow. It is the Mughal kitchen's way of treating rice as a dessert, and it was a fixture of celebrations and weddings.
We serve it as Zafrani Zarda Pulao, listed with the rice dishes rather than the desserts, which is exactly where the tradition would put it too.
Kulfi
Milk reduced until dense, flavoured with saffron, cardamom or pistachio, then frozen in sealed metal cones. It is richer and slower-melting than ice cream because it is never churned, so no air is whipped in.
The Ain-i-Akbari describes how the Mughal court kept things cold: ice and snow were carried down from the mountains, and water was chilled using saltpetre. Kulfi is widely linked to that era, although the details of its origin are hard to pin down. We serve malai kulfi alongside our Mawa Sheermal.
Sheermal
Strictly a bread, but a sweet one: shir is Persian for milk, and sheermal is made with milk and often saffron, baked until soft and faintly sweet. On the Mughlai table it went with rich dishes; today it is also turned into dessert.
Our Mawa Sheermal with Malai Kulfi and Toasted Nuts fills it with mawa — reduced milk — and serves it with kulfi, and the tasting menu version is filled with jaggery and khoya.
Two Descendants: Daulat ki Chaat and Mawa Baati
Daulat ki chaat is not a court dish but a street one, sold in winter in the old quarters of Delhi and other north Indian cities: milk whipped into a foam so light it barely exists, with saffron and a scattering of sugar and nuts. It belongs to the same family of patient milk sweets, and ours comes with jaggery chikki and pistachio.
Mawa Baati is richer: soft, lightly sweetened dumplings made with mawa. Both are on the menu, under Shirini-e-Taj. For Agra's own famous sweet, see our piece on petha.
