Milk sugar behaves differently across Indian sweets depending entirely on the preparation used. Two sweets that look similar can sit at opposite ends of the lactose range, and the recipe reveals which is which.

Draining removes milk sugar, reducing concentrates it

When milk is split with acid, most of the lactose leaves in the whey, since milk sugar is water-soluble and follows the water out through the cloth.

When milk is reduced instead, nothing leaves except water. The lactose stays and becomes a larger proportion of what remains in the pan.

So a sweet made from drained curd carries considerably less milk sugar per ounce than one made from reduced milk, despite both being described as milk sweets.

Fermented dairy sits somewhere else again

Cultured products convert part of their lactose during fermentation, since the bacteria involved use it as their energy source.

Sweets and drinks built on cultured dairy therefore carry less lactose than the milk they started from, though how much less depends on the culture and the time given to it.

The sourness is a rough indicator of that conversion, which is why heavily soured preparations tend to be lower in milk sugar than mild ones.

Ghee is a special case within the dairy group

Clarification removes water and the milk solids suspended in it, and the milk sugar leaves with those solids rather than remaining in the fat.

This is why ghee is treated differently from butter in dairy-restricted cooking, and why so many Indian sweets use it as the fat rather than cream.

The clues sit in the texture, not the label

A springy, wet sweet that swells in syrup started life as drained curd. A dense, grainy or fudge-like one started as reduced milk.

A dry, crumbly sweet built mainly on flour, nuts or legume paste may contain very little dairy at all beyond the fat used to cook it.

Reading a sweet this way is more informative than any general statement about Indian desserts, because the category spans preparations with almost nothing in common.

Tolerance varies and is not a matter of recipe choice

How much lactose an individual handles comfortably differs widely between people and is not something a recipe can be adjusted to solve in general terms.

Anyone managing this specifically should work from medical guidance rather than from a description of how the sweets are made.