It was the promise of mangoes that lured me across town to Little India; sweet, juicy, luscious things available only for a few weeks each year. But since I was there and all, it didn’t hurt to pick up some other sweet tasty treats, like burfi.

Burfi or Barfi is an Indian sweet, similar in consistency to fudge. Also known as Indian cheesecake, it is made by boiling milk, usually condensed milk, along with sugar and flavourings and spices and then allowing it to cool.

Nuts are a common flavouring, particularly pistachios, but burfi can also contain cashews, mango, chocolate, coconut, rose and saffron, as well as spices such as cardamom.

Burfi plays an important role in the Indian holidays of both Holi and Diwali. During both festivals, sweets are a traditional gift and in Little India, where only two shops sell sweets on a regular basis, every food shop is suddenly bursting at the seams with massive trays of beautifully decorated burfi, halva, gulab jamun and more. Silver leaf is a traditional holiday decoration for the usually plain burfi, making the fudgy squares and diamonds glitter.

Typically rich, burfi are usually cut up and served in small pieces. We like to buy a selection ($6.90/pound at Surati), usually one of each flavour, and bring them home to eat with tea. We cut each piece in half and have a few with chai, storing the remainder in the fridge. As milk is the main ingredient, burfi has a fairly short shelf-life.

When shopping for burfi in Little India, we usually head to Surati Sweet Mart (1407 Gerrard Street East), for their large selection of burfi, peda and jalebi. With fifty years of experience and all original recipes “passed down through the generations”, Surati claims their recipes are made with all natural ingredients, no artificial flavours, or colours and no MSG.

Torontonians might recognize the brand as being associated with spicy snack mixes available in many grocery stores. Surati sells these as well – they are traditionally eaten in alternating bites with the sweet burfi – along with a variety of savouries such as samosas and papadums.

Across the street at Punjab Food and Sweets (1448 Gerrard Street East), burfi is complimented by many other traditional Little India street foods such as sugar cane juice, bel puri and paan.

A personal favourite, besides the burfi, is soan cakes, a flaky treat made from sugar, milk, chickpea flour, pistachios, almonds and heavily flavoured with cardamom. With a consistency somewhere between Middle Eastern halva and Chinese Dragon’s Beard candy, soan cakes are made by a company called Haldiram’s and come either in boxes of 8 or 16, or pre-packaged, which is great for lunches as soan cake is very crumbly. We normally buy these at Toronto Cash and Carry (1405 Gerrard Street East), along with a whole other selection of delights including real cinnamon, cans of gulab jamun (too sweet even for my monster sweet tooth) and a variety of Indian groceries and produce.

Living in the west end, I tend to make it across town to Little India only a couple of times a year, but when I do, there is always a gold box full of Indian sweets amongst my packages on the return trip.