This is a list of Indian sweets and desserts, also called mithai, a significant element in Indian cuisine. Many Indian desserts are fried foods made with sugar, milk or condensed milk. Ingredients and preferred types of dessert vary by region. In the eastern part of India, for example, most are based on milk products. No celebration is complete without the traditional 'mithais'. In fact, all the deities have their favorite desserts. Some of these sweets are hundreds of years old and have some really interesting stories attached to them. Here is a list of some popular Indian sweets and legends associated with them. While it’s easy to be perplexed about that plate of diamond-shaped barfi or a bowl of syrupy gulab jamun, an adventurous foodie quickly discovers the addictive quality of Indian sweets. Just one bite and those fragrant and exotic Indian desserts suddenly become something you crave, especially during festive occasions like Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights that takes place during the new moon between October and November.