Indian buffets in the United States tend to offer the same two or three sweets. The selection is dictated by the format rather than by preference, and the constraints are specific.
The line holds one temperature for a long time
A buffet keeps hot items hot and cold items cold across a service period measured in hours, with nothing finished to order.
Sweets that depend on a contrast between hot and cold, or on being eaten within minutes, have no way to survive that.
What remains are items that are stable at a single temperature, which immediately removes most of the freshly fried and freshly assembled repertoire.
Moisture migration eliminates the crisp sweets
Anything crisp sitting in a covered tray absorbs moisture from the air around it and from its own steam, softening steadily through the service.
A sweet that was crisp at the start of lunch is limp an hour later, and no holding equipment prevents it.
Buffets therefore skip that entire category and lean toward sweets that were always soft or always wet, where the texture cannot deteriorate in that direction.
Syrup-based sweets are the natural fit
Items held in syrup are already saturated, so they neither dry out nor soften further, and the syrup keeps the surface from crusting.
They can be replenished from a container without any finishing step, and they portion easily with a spoon.
Those properties explain their near-universal presence, and the fact that they are as good after two hours as at the start.
Cold set desserts occupy the other slot
A chilled milk pudding or a set dairy dessert holds well in a cold well and serves with a spoon, which covers the non-syrup half of the dessert offering.
They also portion in a way that suits self-service, since a diner takes a spoonful rather than a defined piece.
Cut sweets appear less often, because they dry at the edges once exposed and look poor after an hour on a tray.
Food safety sets the outer limits
Dairy desserts held on a line are subject to time and temperature control, and commercial operators work to published food safety requirements for hot and cold holding.
Those rules are why sweets are held in shallow pans in a cold well rather than sitting at room temperature on the counter.
For a diner the useful implication is straightforward: the dessert end of a buffet is designed around what survives the format, not around what the kitchen makes best.