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Diwali mithais 101: A mix of old and new
While sweet shops in Lucknow are offering modern bakery varieties to patrons, bakers have made room for some traditional mithais too
Something that’s synonymous with Diwali other than light is inarguably sweets. While traditional sweets still continue to be festival favourites, some international varieties and bakery items have also gained popularity in recent times. In fact, a lot of leading sweet shops in the city now have in-house bakeries, while bakeries, on the other hand, have started offering “traditional, yet modern mithais” to their patrons.
Traditional with an exotic twist
Turkish dessert Baklava introduced by Danbro by Mr Brown in 2011 apparently started the trend of bakeries selling sweets. “Since then, we have innovated with a lot of items along with different types of baklavas. This year, we have introduced traditional sweets, but not authentic khoya ones. The laddoos are in mango, chocolate, cranberry, white chocolate and roasted almond flavours,” says Tanushree Gupta, founder-director, Danbro by Mr Brown. A mithai team has been put in place especially for the launch of the new range this Diwali, she adds.
Old is gold
The sweets shops that don’t have in-house bakeries are focusing on traditional sweets and dry fruits.
“People want traditional sweets when it comes to festivals. Since shelf-life is a problem, sweets with more dry fruits work better. We don’t have bakery items, but our exotic dry fruit laddoos work well,” says Ved Prakash, Classic Radhey Sweets.
Matrika Gupta from the 223-year-old Ram Asrey Sweets, too, is focusing on traditional sweets as well as modern ones. “Our expertise is traditional sweets and customers come to us for that. My younger sister is a trained baker, so we have that option too. But we like to focus on our strength (traditional sweets), alongside offering modern and chocolate-based sweet options for corporate gifting, etc.”
Keeping it natural
Ravindra Gupta from Chhappan Bhog says, “High-quality sweets such as meva bites, fruit-based sweets made with fig, orange, kiwi, dates and exotic fruits, with no artificial sugar, is what people ask for the most. Traditional sweets work too.”
After rebranding, JJ Baking Co has come up with a range of sweets this festive season. “Besides a range of baklawas, what we have introduced this season are sweets with mango, cranberry, pineapple, kiwi and cashew-almond fusions. We also have paan, gulkand and strawberry-flavoured sweets,” says Jasjeev Kohli, owner, JJ Baking Co.
