Top Indian Sweets You Must Try from an Indian Mithai Shop in London
London has no shortage of food. But when it comes to authentic Indian sweets — the kind that actually taste like they were made by someone who knows what they're doing — the options narrow quickly. Not every shop that calls itself an Indian mithai shop in London is serving fresh mithai, made properly, using real ghee and proper technique.
If you've grown up eating gulab jamun at weddings or sharing barfi boxes during Diwali, you already know the difference between the real thing and something that was sitting in a display cabinet for three days. That difference matters.
Here are the sweets worth trying — and what to look for when you're picking up a box.
Gulab Jamun — The One Everyone Asks For First
Kaju katli looks unassuming. A thin silver-wrapped diamond of cashew and sugar. But the quality range is enormous — from grainy, dry versions that taste like nothing, to smooth, slightly fudgy ones that melt cleanly with a proper cashew flavour.

What to look for:

  • Fine, consistent texture — no graininess
  • Thin cut, not thick and stodgy
  • The cashew flavour should come through, not just sweetness

This is one of the most gifted sweets during festivals, and the one where the quality of the shop really shows. It's not complex to make, which means there's nowhere to hide if the cashews or the process are substandard.
Kaju Katli — Simple, Expensive, Worth It
There's a reason gulab jamun turns up at virtually every Indian celebration. They're soft, syrup-soaked, warm when fresh, and when they're done right, they almost fall apart when you press them.

What makes a good gulab jamun:

  • Made with khoya (milk solids), not a dry-mix shortcut
  • Fried at the right temperature — not rushed
  • Soaked long enough in rosewater syrup that they absorb properly rather than sitting on the surface

A well-made gulab jamun should feel like it dissolves rather than chews. If it's rubbery or dense, it wasn't made right.
Barfi — The Box-Filler That Deserves More Respect
Plain barfi gets overlooked because it's not flashy. But a fresh slab of milk barfi, cut properly, with the right sugar-to-milk ratio and a subtle cardamom hit? That's actually harder to get right than most people realise.

Popular varieties to try:

  • Milk barfi — classic, simple, best when fresh
  • Pista barfi — pistachio throughout, slightly denser
  • Coconut barfi — lighter, often underrated
  • Chocolate barfi — a newer variation that works surprisingly well when not overdone

Most mithai shop services will box these together for Diwali or Eid gifting. If you're ordering a mixed box, ask which ones were made that day. That detail matters more than the variety selection.
Jalebi — Best Eaten Immediately
Jalebi is the least patient sweet on this list. It needs to be eaten fresh, when the outside still has crunch and the inside is warm and saturated with syrup. A jalebi left out for a few hours turns into something quite different — sticky, soggy, no longer interesting.

Fresh jalebi signs:

  • Crisp outside, not soft all the way through
  • Bright orange or deep saffron colour
  • Syrup inside the loops, not just coating them
Some shops sell jalebi cold from a tray. That's fine for a quick grab, but if you can, ask whether fresh ones are being fried that morning. A good Indian mithai shop in London will often have a frying schedule — worth knowing about.
Rasgulla — The Bengali Classic That's Easy to Ruin
Rasgulla is deceptively difficult. Soft chenna balls cooked in sugar syrup — it sounds straightforward. But if the chenna isn't drained properly, or the cooking time is off, you end up with either a grainy mess or something that falls apart on the plate.

What a proper rasgulla feels like:

  • Spongy but holds its shape when pressed
  • White or very pale, not yellowed
  • Light — not dense or floury in the centre
It's a sweeter, more delicate option compared to gulab jamun, and a good test of a shop's technical standards.
Ladoo — The Celebration Sweet
You can't talk about Indian sweets without ladoo. Round, golden, usually made from besan (chickpea flour), semolina, or motichoor (tiny fried chickpea droplets), they're the sweet that gets handed out at births, weddings, and pretty much any occasion worth marking.

The main types you'll find:

  • Besan ladoo — nutty, dense, slightly grainy in a good way
  • Motichoor ladoo — delicate, orange, made from tiny fried droplets
  • Rava ladoo — semolina-based, lighter, sometimes studded with cashews
Motichoor ladoo is probably the most technical. The droplets need to be tiny and fried precisely. A clumsy batch looks and tastes obviously wrong.
Halwa — The Underrated One
Gajar ka halwa (carrot halwa) in winter is something else. Slow-cooked with milk, ghee, sugar, and cardamom until it reduces down into a deep orange, almost jammy consistency — it's not delicate like barfi, but it's deeply satisfying.

Suji halwa (semolina) is faster to make and lighter in texture. Moong dal halwa takes longer than almost anything else in mithai and has a richness that's hard to find outside specialist shops.

If a shop does moong dal halwa well, pay attention. That's usually a sign the kitchen takes the slower recipes seriously.
Why Freshness Is the Only Thing That Matters
All of these sweets have one thing in common: they're best within 24–48 hours of being made. Most proper mithai shop services will tell you the shelf life of what you're buying. If nobody mentions it, ask.

Some sweets travel well — kaju katli and barfi can handle a couple of days without issue. Others — jalebi, rasgulla, halwa — really don't.

At Jalsa Foods, the focus is on sweets made properly, not sweets made quickly. Whether you're building a gift box for Diwali, ordering for a family gathering, or just wanting something decent with chai on a grey London afternoon — you'll find the range covers the classics without cutting corners.