Ingredient guides

What the ingredients in Indian sweets actually are, what changes when you substitute them, and where to find them in a US or UK kitchen.

• Besan (Gram Flour): Coarse vs Fine, and How to Roast It also gram flour, chana flour, chickpea flour The flour behind ladoo, barfi, mohanthal and soan papdi, which grind each sweet wants, and how to tell by smell and colour when it has roasted enough.
• Khoya (Mawa) also mawa, khoa, mava Milk cooked down to a solid — the base of most Indian sweets, and the one ingredient a kitchen outside India usually cannot get.
• Milk Powder (Whole vs Skimmed) also powdered milk, dried milk, dry whole milk, full-cream milk powder, whole milk powder The ingredient most mithai abroad actually runs on — and why the tin on the supermarket shelf is usually the wrong one.