Kulfi – the ice cream delight!

I love ice cream and generally am ready to eat it any time. I am not fussy but there is one flavour I cannot abide and that is mint. I had it once as it looked nice and green…. Just like the pistachio one…. It felt like I was licking toothpaste! I do well with vanilla, most fruity flavours and of course chocolate and nuts. I have been known to eat ice cream out walking on the roads in Moscow, when it is snowing and -2C and God knows what wind-chill factor. When I was younger I could easily just have ice cream for a meal and indeed I did do that on many occasions. 

One of my favourite ice creams is kulfi, an Indian dessert. Anywhere I find it I will buy it. In UK one day I found it in the local supermarket and was overjoyed. But after a few weeks they stopped selling it. Not sure why they would do that since it flew off the shelves as fast as they stocked it. A few months later I found another brand of kulfi being sold in another supermarket, and life was back to being fun. 

When I moved to Sydney, I was thrilled to find so many Indian shops. The variety of Indian foods, groceries, spices, snacks and readymade meals that are stocked is amazing. So at once I assumed that my craving for kulfi would not ever be thwarted. But after a few months, I have been left disappointed that here too, the shops were not stocking it, despite it always selling right away. Instead they seem to have lots of tubs of shrikhand (another Indian dessert made with yogurt). But that’s a recipe for another day. 

When I looked up the recipes for making kulfi they were pretty lengthy and involved cooking the milk. Most of the recipes start with the basics of milk pudding called basundi. This is a milk pudding similar to doodhpak (see my earlier blog) but without any rice in it. The milk needs to be cooked down to nearly half its volume, leaving it thick and creamy yellow. However, since I have an electric hob and occasional tendency to forget I have something cooking, the last time I tried making basundi the milk was caught at the base and the burnt smell permeated through the milk. I was very upset, as I had to throw away a big bowl of the dessert.

One of my friend’s has now given me a recipe where I do not have to cook anything. I finally tried it and it turned out to be the best thing I have had. So am sharing with my family and friends who are fellow kulfi lovers.

Ingredients

1 can of evaporated milk (375 mls)

1 can sweetened condensed milk (185 mls)

1 tub of fresh thickened cream (300 mls)

Method

Put all in a bowl and stir to mix well.

Add the flavour you want from the choices listed below.

Pour in a container with lid and freeze.

After 2 hours take the container out and stir the kulfi mix to break up the ice crystals.

Return the kulfi to the freezer.

It should be ready to eat in another 3 hours.

Flavours

That’s about it…. This is the base of the kulfi. Then you can add into to it the flavours you like.

1 teaspoon of crushed cardamom

A pinch of saffron (dissolved in a couple of spoons of milk)

3 table spoons of finely chopped Almonds

3 table spoons of finely chopped pistachios

You can also add pulp of fruit that you like. Most commonly people tend to add mango pulp or even just 1 mango crushed to get that chucky effect.

The first effort of mine was a mix of almond and pistachios and I am looking forward to trying out other flavours. DO try and let me know what you think and what flavours you are partial to.