That is the paradox at the centre of this article. A large share of India’s festive sweets, and nearly all its festive snacks, are fried. Oil is not a background detail; it is the cooking medium and, in a real sense, part of what ends up in the mouth. It determines whether a sweet is crisp or leathery, clean or greasy, aromatic or flat. It is the hidden ingredient in every Diwali sweet, and until recently the least examined. That is beginning to change, and this article looks at why, and at how Two Brothers India Farms and its cold-pressed oils, groundnut, black mustard and sunflower– fit into a season of cooking that runs from Dhanteras through the wedding months.
The frying medium shapes the result in four ways. Texture: dough fried in oil that is too cool absorbs it and turns heavy, while well-managed oil gives a light, shatteringly crisp exterior. Flavour: a mild oil lets cardamom, saffron and khoya come through; a strong one imposes itself. Colour: fresh oil gives an even gold, while oil used repeatedly darkens food and adds bitterness. Aftertaste: the heavy, stale feeling left by some festive fried food is the signature of tired oil.
Why the Oil Question Is Louder Than Ever
Consumer awareness of ingredients has grown, and oil, a large-volume daily-use ingredient, has come up for review. Regulators have also spoken. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has set a limit of 25 percent total polar compounds for frying oil and encourages collecting used cooking oil for biodiesel rather than repeated reuse, and the message has spread that repeatedly heated oil is a problem. Metabolic health is on more minds, too: the ICMR-INDIAB study estimated around 101 million people in India with diabetes and 136 million in the prediabetic range. A fried sweet is a treat, not a health food, but families managing such conditions want its components to be as clean as possible. And the ICMR-NIN 2024 dietary guidelines have reinforced that total fat should stay at or below about 30 percent of energy, with variety among oils preferred.
What Cold-Pressing Changes
Refined oil is extracted using heat, often with chemical solvents such as hexane, then degummed, neutralised, bleached and deodorised into a pale, neutral, long-lasting liquid. It is efficient, and it is why most bottled oil tastes of very little. Cold-pressed oil is extracted mechanically by pressing seeds at low temperature, with no solvents. The Two Brothers cold-pressed oil range is single-filtered, hexane-free and free of additives and preservatives. The sunflower oil is described as never exposed to high heat, and the wood-pressed mustard oil is packed at around 40°C.
For the cook this means noticeable character. Cold-pressed groundnut oil adds a gentle roasted-peanut nuttiness. Mustard oil is pungent. Sunflower oil is mild with a fresh, seed-like note that refined versions lack. For sweets that creates both opportunity and caution: a mild oil improves a fried sweet by getting out of its way, while a strong one used in the wrong dish overwhelms it.
Matching Oil to Sweet
Groundnut oil: the reliable choice. Cold-pressed from the native Ghungroo variety, it is gentle in flavour, heat-tolerant and stable across long frying sessions, and is free of trans fats. It suits gujiya, where the dough must fry slowly enough for the filling to cook and the crust to blister without burning; shakarpara, khaja and chirote, which need gradual, even frying to develop flaky layers; and sev, chakli and mathri. A tip for filled sweets: fry in moderately hot oil, not the hottest you can manage. If the oil is too hot the shell colours before the inside sets and the sweet can crack or leak.
Sunflower oil: the neutral canvas. The mildest of the three, it is high in omega-6 polyunsaturated fat, contains tocopherols and suits batter-based sweets such as malpua, light fried snacks, greasing pans and preparing dough. Because it is rich in polyunsaturated fat, use fresh oil for each session and do not reheat it repeatedly.
Black mustard oil: the regional specialist. Mustard oil rarely appears in sweets but is central to savoury festive items: certain pakoras, regional namkeen, pickles and sarson da saag. Its pungency is wrong for delicate desserts.
Oil and Ghee: Not a Contest
In many households sweets are traditionally made with ghee, rightly so; nothing replaces good ghee in a laddu, halwa or mysore pak. Two Brothers is itself known for its A2 cultured bilona ghee, and the oils are not meant to displace it. The two serve different roles. Ghee is for flavour and tradition where its taste is part of the sweet. Oil is for frying in volume and for dishes where a neutral or nutty medium serves better. Many gujiya, malpua and balushahi recipes use both: ghee in the dough, oil in the kadhai. The ICMR-NIN guidelines advise limiting saturated fat sources, ghee among them, so a balanced festive kitchen uses ghee where flavour demands it and good unsaturated oil elsewhere. The full Two Brothers ghee range covers the rest.
Technique: A Worked Example with Shakarpara
Frying festive sweets is more about technique than recipe. Rest doughs for twenty to thirty minutes so they roll easily and fry evenly. Work moyan, the fat rubbed into the flour, through the dough; it is what makes fried pastry flaky, and mild sunflower or groundnut oil works well. Control the heat, fry in small batches, and drain and cool sweets on a rack before storing so trapped steam does not soften them.
For shakarpara, make a dough of flour, a little sugar, a pinch of salt and moyan, bind it with milk or water, and rest it for half an hour. Some families now use stone-ground Khapli Atta in place of maida for a nuttier, more rustic bite. Roll it evenly, cut diamonds and let them dry briefly on a cloth. Heat fresh groundnut oil gently in a heavy kadhai to a depth that lets the pieces float. A scrap of dough should sink briefly, then rise slowly with small bubbles; if it shoots up at once, lower the flame. Fry in small batches to a pale gold over several minutes, drain, then toss in syrup or dust with sugar once cool enough to handle. Fresh oil, patient heat, small batches and a mild medium did the work. It is why families who switch often say the sweets taste “cleaner”: there is less stale flavour competing with the cardamom. For those short on time, Two Brothers also sells a ready Crispy Khapli Shankarpali.
The Wedding-Season Factor
Diwali opens the next chapter of festive cooking: the wedding season, when kitchens run at a scale that dwarfs any festival. Caterers and family kitchens fry sweets and snacks for hundreds, and scale creates temptation, reusing oil across days, topping up rather than replacing, and choosing the cheapest option. For families cooking for their own celebrations, or supplying homemade snacks, bulk buying makes sense: the Two Brothers groundnut oil 5 litre tin costs less per millilitre than the 1 litre bottle, and 10 litre tins are available for larger kitchens. Wedding gifting is changing too, with boxes of sweets and dry fruit increasingly joined by ghee, jaggery, oils and flours, gifts that are used, not just admired. Curated Two Brothers gift hampers can serve as return gifts or a present for a couple’s new kitchen.
Freshness Is a Flavour
Freshness of oil matters as much as its type. Store oil in a cool, dry place away from sunlight and the stove, decant a working quantity into a smaller container, and use it within the season. Single-filtered oils show natural sediment; it is harmless. Best-before dates run to one year from packaging (twelve months for groundnut), and they assume proper storage.
Glyphosate-Free in the Festive Kitchen
When a family cooks a festival it cooks for grandparents, children and guests, sometimes hundreds of them, and the ingredients used in the largest quantities matter most. Two Brothers India Farms’ oils are certified glyphosate-free through The Detox Project, with certificates on the product pages. Glyphosate is the world’s most widely used weedicide and is classified as probably carcinogenic to humans by the World Health Organization’s cancer research agency, and India lacks widely publicised residue limits for such staples. The founders, brothers Satyajit and Ajinkya Hange, say they extended certification to everyday staples because things eaten daily and in bulk matter most; their farm story explains the thinking. For the person frying two dozen gujiyas and a kilo of sev, the logic is easy to grasp.
The Oils at a Glance
Groundnut: 1 litre bottle ₹465, 2 litre bottle ₹850, 2 litre tin ₹895, 5 litre tin ₹2,195, 10 litre tin ₹4,390; 4.84 out of 5 from more than 700 reviews. Black mustard: 1 litre ₹425, 2 litre ₹790, 5 litre tin ₹2,065, 10 litre tin ₹4,130; 4.84 from more than 150 reviews. Sunflower: 1 litre ₹445, 5 litre tin ₹2,095; 4.84 from more than 90 reviews. Prices are as listed at the time of writing. The oils also sit within the wider Two Brothers Diwali cooking collection, alongside atta, ghee and jaggery.
Nothing here suggests fried sweets should be avoided. They are part of the celebration. Choose quality over quantity, fry at the right temperature so less oil is absorbed, blot before serving, balance the table with fruit and lighter dishes, and keep portions sensible, especially for people managing blood sugar. The ICMR-NIN guidelines also advise limiting added sugar to under 5 percent of energy, and a syrup-soaked fried sweet is a concentrated dose of both fat and sugar.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which oil is best for frying Diwali sweets? Cold-pressed groundnut oil, for its mild flavour and heat tolerance; sunflower is a good neutral alternative.
Can I use mustard oil for sweets? Generally no; its pungent flavour overwhelms delicate desserts.
Ghee or oil for gujiya? Many recipes use ghee in the dough and oil for frying.
How can I stop fried sweets being greasy? Fry at the right temperature, avoid overcrowding, drain properly and use fresh oil.
Can I reuse the oil? Lightly used oil once for shallow frying or tadka; discard oil that has darkened, smells sharp, foams or smokes.
Are Two Brothers oils refined? No. They are cold-pressed, single-filtered and hexane-free, with no additives or preservatives.
Changing the Festive Kitchen, One Ingredient at a Time
Festive cooking has always evolved. The current shift is quiet but notable: households that once thought of oil as a commodity now treat it as an ingredient with a source, a method and a story. That is not about abandoning tradition but honouring it. The grandmothers who fried gujiya in small batches, tested the oil with a pinch of dough and threw out the last tired kadhai did so for the same reason: they cared what went into the food.
Every Diwali sweet has a hidden ingredient, and for a long time nobody asked what it was. Two Brothers India Farms’ cold-pressed groundnut, black mustard and sunflower oils invite the question, and answer it with a farm, a press, a certificate and a lab report. The sweets on your table will still taste of cardamom, khoya and memory. They will simply be fried in something you can trust.
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