Kulfi is an Indian Icecream which has its own charm. This frozen dessert is traditionally made after a long process simmering the milk in a medium flame stirring continuously till it is creamy. Now a days we have several shortcuts reduce cooking process. I too used a magic ingredient.As it is Holi season, I decided to spice it up with a home made thandai mixture and the it turned out amazingly good. (For the thandai drink recipe please click here)
- Full fat milk - 2.5 cups
- Condensed milk - ½ cup (3/4 cup if you need it more sweeter)
- Milk powder - ¼ cup
- Almonds - 10 nos
- Poppy seeds - 1 tbsp, soaked in 3 tbsp hot water for 30 minutes
- Black pepper - 5 nos
- Green cardamom - 2
- Fennel seeds - 1 teaspoon
- Grind poppy seeds(along with the water in which it was being soaked), black pepper, green cardamom and fennel seeds to a paste.
- Soak almonds in ⅓ cup of hot water and peel it after a while
- Coarsely ground it. Keep aside.
- Combine the milk, condensed milk, milk powder and thandai spice mix in heavy bottom sauce pan
- Keep another bowl with a seive ready.
- Heat this in a medium flame for 10 - 15 minutes.
- Keep stirring, scrapping down the sides in between
- Quickly strain milk mixture and squeeze the residue to extract the maximum juice. Discard residue
- Pour the milk mixture back to the sauce pan and back to flame
- Add in coarsely ground almonds and continue cooking for 5 to 7 minutes
- Switch off the flame and allow the mixture to cool completely.
- Pour the mixture into 6 kulfi molds and freeze for 8 to 10 hours
- To release, take out the mold from the freezer about 5 minutes before you want to serve and leave it out.
- Or dip the molds in hot water and quickly unmold to a serving tray
- Garnish with sliced almonds...
It is rich, fragrant, sweet, creamy and a bit chewy. Flavorings can be added as per your preference. Just cardamom powder can do wonder. Add pistachios for nutty chew. Recently I had a betel flavored dark chocolate. So I guess, why not trying that too in a kulfi. For royal touch, garnish the kulfi with silver or golden leaf . Or to modernize the plating add some berries or compote and tuile biscuits (This idea inspiration is from Chef Vineet Bhatia’s Rasoi book).
If you do not have a conical kulfi mold, you could use a lollipop mold. Else tiny plastic glasses. If you are using plastic glasses, make sure you cover the glasses well foil before keeping it in freezer.
Leave a Reply