This is a list of notable Sri Lankan sweets and desserts. Sri Lanka is well known throughout South Asia for sweets and desserts originating from there. Desserts are usually served as part of main meals, whereas sweets are consumed at tea times. Many Sri Lankan desserts and sweets contain domestic spices, jaggery and kithul ( Caryota urens ) treacle. Locally made treacle and jaggery are the most common sweeteners.Sri Lanka's most famous sweet as acknowledged by all Sri Lankan is kawum .
Name | Image | Main ingredients | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Watalappam | ![]() | Coconut milk, jaggery (kittul treacle), eggs, spices (cardamom, cloves) | The most popular dessert among Sri Lankan Muslims during Ramadan. Commonly served at weddings, parties and other special ceremonies. |
Buffalo curd | ![]() | Buffalo milk, starter culture | Popular in southern Sri Lanka for weddings, alms, and as a household dessert. |
Semolina and jaggery pudding | Semolina, jaggery, milk, spices cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla | A less common dessert. | |
Avocado Cream | Avocado, sugar, cream | Household dessert often offered in restaurants. | |
Kirala (Lumnitzera littorea) fruit milk | Kirala fruits, treacle | A dessert drink popular in southern Sri Lanka. | |
Kithul flour pudding | Kithul flour, coconut milk, jaggery or sugar, spices | A popular dessert among Sinhalese people, offered in some small restaurants. | |
Wood apple milk | Wood apple, coconut milk, sugar | A very popular dessert drink. | |
Pudding of dulya | Eggs, milk, bread crumbs, sugar, vanilla | Similar to bread pudding. Used for special occasions. | |
Sago pudding | ![]() | Sago, sugar, milk, eggs | This is popular among all communities in Sri Lanka. Mostly offered at Tamil weddings and cultural festivals. |
Commonly used ingredients across traditional Sri Lankan sweets are Rice flour, treacle and coconut milk. Treacle is a food sweetening syrup made from the sap oozing from "tapped" blossoms of palm trees, particularly, Coconut (Cocos nusifera) or "Kithul" (Caryota urens).
Name | Image | Main ingredients | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Aasmi | Rice flour, coconut milk and the juice of cinnamon leaves | Deep fried but served cooled. Popular treat served at Sinhalese New Year and special events. | |
Aggala | Kithul treacle, rice flour, pepper | Spicy sweet. Mostly prepared for tea time in villages. | |
Aluwa | ![]() | Rice flour, sugar, milk, butter, spices (cardamom, cloves) | Popular among Sinhalese. Served at cultural festivals. |
Athirasa | Rice flour, treacle, coconut milk | A very popular and culturally important Sinhalese sweet. Diamond or round shaped batter deep fried in hot oil. | |
Bibikkan | ![]() | Semolina, raisins, treacle, rice flour, scrapped coconut, spices and flavours | Similar to fruit cake. |
Dosi | ![]() | Fruit, sugar, water | candied fruit |
Green Gram cake (Mung Kevum) | Rice flour, mung flour, treacle, ghee, spices | A popular Sinhalese sweet fried in oil often used at cultural events. | |
Halapa | rice flour, kurakkan flour | It's usually wrapped in a leaf. | |
Kalu Dodol | | kithul jaggery, rice flour, coconut milk, and cashew nuts | Sri Lankan dodol. Household sweet, usually served at tea time and special events. Prepared by boiling Coconut milk and Kitul Juggery in big Pan (thachi) and adding rice flour, cashew nut and spices to the reduced mix. |
Kesari bhath | ![]() | Rava, cardamon, sugar, ghee | A South Indian sweet now very popular among Tamils, who cook it for celebrations. |
Kevum (Oil Cake) | | Rice flour, treacle, coconut milk | A very popular Sinhalese sweet. Fried in hot oil pan individually. The small bump at top gives the name 'konda' (tied hair).Ladies with special skill to get "Kanda" wins respect. |
Kiri aluwa (milk toffee) | ![]() | Condensed milk, sugar, cashew nuts, cardamom | soft milk toffee |
Kokis | | Rice flour, coconut milk | Crispy biscuit-like, Of Dutch origin |
Lavariya | Rice flour, Pol Pani | Soft string hoppers filled with caramelised coconut | |
Popo (coconut balls) | Coconut, sugar, flour, essence | Used in rituals and special events. | |
Sowboro | Flour, sugar, rulan, scraped coconut, butter and salt | Popular biscuit among Sinhalese, available only in village boutiques and fairs. | |
Undu Walalu/Undu Wal or Pani Walalu | Urad bean flour and kithul treacle | Tasty crispy tubes filled with Kithul treacle. Looks like earthworm but a world class sweet, unique to Sri Lanka. | |
Weli Thalapa | Rice flour, scraped coconut, Kitul or coconut treacle, spices | Household sweet, usually served at tea time. Prepared in two step process, first is to prepare Pittu with Rice flour and second to mix that with Kitul / Coconut treacle. | |
Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as candy, and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. Some cultures sweeten foods that are more commonly savory to create desserts. In some parts of the world there is no tradition of a dessert course to conclude a meal.
Curd is obtained by coagulating milk in a sequential process called curdling. It can be a final dairy product or the first stage in cheesemaking. The coagulation can be caused by adding rennet, a culture, or any edible acidic substance such as lemon juice or vinegar, and then allowing it to coagulate. The increased acidity causes the milk proteins (casein) to tangle into solid masses, or curds. Milk that has been left to sour will also naturally produce curds, and sour milk cheeses are produced this way. Producing cheese curds is one of the first steps in cheesemaking; the curds are pressed and drained to varying amounts for different styles of cheese and different secondary agents are introduced before the desired aging finishes the cheese. The remaining liquid, which contains only whey proteins, is the whey. In cow's milk, 90 percent of the proteins are caseins. Curds can be used in baking or may be consumed as a snack.
Jaggery is a traditional non-centrifugal cane sugar consumed in the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Central América, Brazil and Africa. It is a concentrated product of cane juice and often date or palm sap without separation of the molasses and crystals, and can vary from golden brown to dark brown in colour. It contains up to 50% sucrose, up to 20% invert sugars, and up to 20% moisture, with the remainder made up of other insoluble matter, such as wood ash, proteins, and bagasse fibres. Jaggery is very similar to muscovado, an important sweetener in Portuguese, British and French cuisine. The Kenyan Sukari ngutu/nguru has no fibre; it is dark and is made from sugar cane and also sometimes extracted from palm tree.
Kitulgala is a small town in the west of Sri Lanka. The Academy Award-winning The Bridge on the River Kwai was filmed on the Kelani River near Kitulgala, although nothing remains now except the concrete foundations for the bridge. Kitulgala is also a base for white-water rafting, which starts a few kilometres upstream and also popular as a location for adventure based training programs.
Sri Lankan cuisine is known for its particular combinations of herbs, spices, fish, vegetables, rices, and fruits. The cuisine is highly centered around many varieties of rice, as well as coconut which is a ubiquitous plant throughout the country. Seafood also plays a significant role in the cuisine, be it fresh fish or preserved fish. As a country that was a hub in the historic oceanic silk road, contact with foreign traders brought new food items and cultural influences in addition to the local traditions of the country's ethnic groups, all of which have helped shape Sri Lankan cuisine. Influences from Indian, Indonesian and Dutch cuisines are most evident with Sri Lankan cuisine sharing close ties to other neighbouring South and Southeast Asian cuisines.
Mithai (sweets) are the confectionery and desserts of the Indian subcontinent. Thousands of dedicated shops in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka sell nothing but sweets.
Caryota urens is a species of flowering plant in the palm family, native to Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar and Malaysia, where they grow in fields and rainforest clearings, it is regarded as introduced in Cambodia. The epithet urens is Latin for "stinging" alluding to the chemicals in the fruit. Common names in English include solitary fishtail palm, kitul palm, toddy palm, wine palm, sago palm and jaggery palm. Its leaf is used as fishing rod after trimming the branches of the leaf and drying. According to Monier-Williams, it is called moha-karin in Sanskrit. It is one of the sugar palms.
Kuswar or Kuswad is a set of festive sweets and snacks made and exchanged by Christians of the Konkan region in the Indian subcontinent for the Christmas season or Christmastide. These goodies are major parts of the cuisines of the Goan Catholic community of Goa, and the Mangalorean Catholic community of Karnataka. There are as many as 22 different traditional recipes that form this distinct flavour of Christmas celebration in Goa and Mangalore.
Watalappam is a coconut custard pudding made of coconut milk or condensed milk, jaggery, cashew nuts, eggs, various spices, including cardamom, cloves, and nutmeg, and sometimes thick pandan juice or grated vanilla pods.
Kiribath is a traditional Sri Lankan dish made from rice. It is prepared by cooking rice with coconut milk, hence this name, and can be considered a form of rice cake or rice pudding. Kiribath is an essential dish in Sri Lankan cuisine. It is very commonly served for breakfast on the first day of each month and also has added significance of being eaten for any auspicious moment throughout one's lifetime which are marking times of transition. It is one of the more renowned traditional dishes in Sri Lanka.
Kozhukatta or Kozhukkattai is a popular South Indian dumpling made from rice flour, with a filling of grated coconut, jaggery, or chakkavaratti. Kozhukatta, although usually sweet, can sometimes be stuffed with a savory filling. Modak is a similar dish made in other parts of India.
Coconut sugar is a palm sugar produced from the sap of the flower bud stem of the coconut palm.
Coconut production contributes to the national economy of Sri Lanka. The scientific name of the coconut is Cocos nucifera. Sri Lanka there are three varieties, tall variety, dwarf variety and King coconut variety. According to figures published in December 2018 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, it is the world's fourth largest producer of coconuts, producing 2,623,000 tonnes in 2018.
Kalu dodol is a sweet dish, a type of dodol that is popular in Sri Lanka. The dark and sticky dish consists mainly of kithul jaggery, rice flour and coconut milk. Kalu dodol is a very difficult and time-consuming dish to prepare. The Hambanthota area is famous for the production of this dish.
Kevum or Kavum is a deep-fried Sri Lankan sweet made from rice flour and kithul (sugar-palm) treacle, with a number of variants adding additional ingredients. It is also known as oil cake. Kevum is traditionally given and consumed during celebrations of Sinhala and Tamil New Year.
Dodol is a sweet toffee-like sugar palm-based confection commonly found in Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Originating from the culinary traditions of Indonesia, it is also popular in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Tamilnadu, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Burma, where it is called mont kalama. It is made from coconut milk, jaggery, and rice flour, and is sticky, thick, and sweet.
Aggala are a traditional Sri Lankan sweet. They are essentially sweet roasted rice balls, made from rice, coconut, jaggery or treacle and pepper.
Sri Lanka scores higher than the regional average in healthcare having a high life expectancy and a lower maternal and infant death rate than its neighbors. In 2018 life expectancy was 72.1 for men and 78.5 for women ranking the country 70th in the world.
Bibikkan is a traditional Sri Lankan coconut cake. It is a dark moist cake made of shredded coconut, jaggery and semolina combined with a mixture of spices. Bibikkan is commonly prepared and consumed in celebration of festive and religious occasions, including Christmas, New Year's Eve, Sinhala and Tamil New Year.
Thala Guli also known as thala bola, gingelly or gingili balls or rolls, are traditional Sri Lankan sweetmeats, made with sesame seeds, salt and jaggery. Thala means sesame in Sinhala and guli or boli refers to whether they are made in the shape of a roll/cylinder or a ball/sphere. In northeast Sri Lanka, they are known as ellu urundai or ellurundai which in Tamil translates as sesame balls.