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Along with the traditional sweets, innovations have taken the world of mishti by storm and fusion sweets are the latest rage. The desserts, insist foodies, invariably leave a pleasing aftertaste.

From music to art, fusion is the latest trend and it has invaded the sweet abode of mishti as well. Fusion sweets are a rage in the city and waking up to the demand, most prominent sweet-makers are going overboard making sweet innovations. "I had recently gone to a friend's wedding and the fare was usual. The dessert, however, was a big surprise and I found that malpoa was being served with brandy sauce. It was amazing," said Adity Roy, a city-based accountant.

While the calorie count of popular sweets raises eyebrows of the health conscious, recent innovations like diabetic sandesh have come as a boon. "I can even get these for my aged father who loves sweets but has been medically advised not to take any," said Sangeeta, a homemaker.

Fusion sweets like strawberry and papaya- flavored sandesh are a rage along with rosogolla in chocolate sauce. "These days, we find people taking a fancy to baked sandesh and baked rosogolla as well as amrita paturi. It is a mixture of around seven different items placed inside a banana leaf," says Sudip Mullick of Balaram Mullick. They have also come up with fusion sweets like the chocolate fudge sandesh and nolen gur filled chocolate. "The nolen gur filled chocolate is extremely popular. We put nolen gur inside chocolate curlings. Other popular picks in fusion mishti are malpoa with maple syrup, alphonso doi and hazelnut sweets," Mullick says.

Along with the traditional sweets, fusion sweets like parijat, which is a mix of pesta, nuts and kheer, moushumi (sandesh stuffed with nuts and coconut), golap pera (pure chhana mixed with rose water), dilkhush (kheer, chhana and pesta) and sourabh (chhana with sugar and pesta) are hot favourites.

"We have introduced a lot of fusion sweets during Durga Puja. The hottest sellers are chocolate malai roll, white and dark chocolate black forest sandesh and chocolate rice balls which has pure chocolate inside," says Partha Nandi of Nakur. Strawberry malai rolls, butterscotch malai rolls and gurer malai rolls are also sought after. "While making the malai rolls, we mix the milk with liquid cocoa or strawberry. Hence, the entire malai gets naturally flavoured," Nandi says. Nakur has also introduced the manda, which is a reincarnation of the old manda in its fusion avatar. "We stuff the sweets with processed jaggery and it's coated with flakes of jaggery. It is not as sweet to taste as the manda of the old times," he said.

So, fusion mishti aficionados are now spoilt for choice. From alphonso doi and blackcurrant sandesh to kiwi sandesh and strawberry rabri, there is a wide variety of sweets to choose from. "My friends and I also like the strawberry rosogolla from Gupta's, the tulsi doi and tulsi sandesh of Hindustan Sweets and the rose cream peshawari and orange doi of KC Das," says Adity.

It's time to shed those inhibitions and health worries and dig into the yummy chocolate rice balls or taste the finger-licking good mango doi.