Assorted Colourful Kulfi - The Favourite Ritual of Everyone after Meals

When summers are on with the temperature shooting high, kulfi brings the perfect happiness to mind, soul and of course our belly, so called tummy…Ha Ha Haaaa…..Isn’t it?  Kulfis are such dessert which is enjoyed by everyone right from kids to adults. Be it any occasion –wedding, birthday or family gathering, meals are always finished with super delicious kulfi and it is favorite ritual of everyone.

There are no such limitations in flavours.With one base of kulfi, you can prepare different varieties of kulfi. The base of the kulfi is prepared by reducing the full fat milk and then sweetened with sugar.  Some like to add solid milk or khoya for the grainy texture and some prepare with condensed milk. Here you can be the boss to select your version of kulfi base and flavor it with your choice.

I have chosen few flavors like- plain kulfi, rose kulfi, chocolate kulfi, pista kulfi and my daughter’s favorite color kulfi which is orange kulfi.

So let’s see how to make different flavors of kulfi.

INGREDIENTS

For Kulfi Base – It yields 6 to 7 cups of kulfi base after thickening

• Full Fat Milk – 3 liters
• Sugar – 1&1/2 cup

 For Plain kulfi

• Kulfi base – 1 cup
• Cardamom powder – 1 tsp

 For Rose Kulfi

• Kulfi base – 1 cup
• Rose syrup – 2 tsp

 For Chocolate Kulfi

• Kulfi base – 1 cup
• Chocolate syrup – 2tbsp

 For Pista Kulfi

• Kulfi base – 1 cup
• Cardamom powder – 1 tsp
• Finely Chopped pistachios- 1tsp
• Green food color – ¼ tsp

 For Orange Kulfi

• Kulfi base – 1 cup
• Orange crush – 1 tbsp
• Orange food color – 1/4 tsp

METHOD

• Pour milk into a heavy bottom pan and place it on medium flame.
• Bring the milk to boil and stir continuously until milk reduces to half of its original quantity.
• Then add sugar and cook for another 10 minutes.
• Turn off the flame and let the kulfi base cool down completely.

 To make Plain Kulfi

• Pour in one cup of Kulfi base into a bowl.
• To that add cardamom powder and mix well.
• Transfer the kulfi mixture into a kulfi mould and freeze it until done.
• To demould kulfi, dip the mould in the warm water for 10 seconds and pull out the kulfi from its mould.
• Plain kulfi is ready to serve.

To Make Rose Kulfi

• Pour in one cup of Kulfi base into a bowl.
• To that add rose syrup and mix well.
• Transfer the kulfi mixture into a kulfi mould and freeze it until done.
• To demould kulfi, dip the mould in the warm water for 10 seconds and pull out the kulfi from its mould.
• Rose kulfi is ready to serve.

 To Make Chocolate Kulfi

• Pour in one cup of Kulfi base into a bowl.
• To that add chocolate syrup and mix well.
• Transfer the kulfi mixture into a kulfi mould and freeze it until done.
• To demould kulfi, dip the mould in the warm water for 10 seconds and pull out the kulfi from its mould.
• Chocolate kulfi is ready to serve.          

 To Make Pista Kulfi

• Pour in one cup of Kulfi base into a bowl. To that add cardamom powder, finely chopped pistachios and green food color. Mix everything well.
• Transfer the kulfi mixture into a kulfi mould and freeze it until done.
• To demould kulfi , dip the mould in the warm water for 10 seconds and pull out the kulfi  from its mould.
• Pista kulfi is ready to serve.

 To Make Orange Kulfi

• Pour in one cup of Kulfi base  into a bowl.
• To that add orange crush and orange food color. Mix everything well.
• Transfer the kulfi mixture into a kulfi mould and freeze it until done.
• To demould kulfi, dip the mould in the warm water for 10 seconds and pull out the kulfi from its mould.
• Orange kulfi is ready to serve.

 

 

Dudhi Sago Kheer

Sabudhana or Sago kheer is the traditional and most common Indian sweet prepared during fasting days. It can easily prepared in less than 20 minutes. Sabudhana is best at its own taste but the it further be innovated by combining with bottlegourd or mango. The fusion not only enhances the flavors of kheer but makes it different from regular sabudhana kheer or sweet. Do try this recipe and relish different version of sabudhana kheer. Lets look in the recipe.

INGREDIENTS

• Dudhi/ Bottlegourd - 1/2 cup , grated
• Sago/ Sabudhana  - 1/4 cup
• Coconut milk - 1&1/2cup
• Sugar or jaggery - 1/4 cup (adjust the sweetness)
• Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp
• Cashewnut pieces -2 tbsp
• Pistachios, chopped - 2 tbsp
• Raisins - 1 tbsp
• Ghee - 1&1/2 tbsp

PREPARATION

• Peel and grate dudhi/ bottlegourd into cold water to avoid discoloration of shredded dudhi.
• Heat ghee in a pan and add  dryfruits and shredded dudhi into it.
• Stir it till the grated dudhi becomes tender and soft.
• In another pot take 1 cup of water and add sabudana into it. Boil it till sabudana becomes soft not mushy. 

• Then add cooked sabudana  into the cooked dudhi. Mix well.
• Add coconut milk and sugar . Mix well and bring the mixture to boil. Cook for another 5 minutes and switch off the gas.
• Then add cardamom powder and mix well.
• Dudhi Sago Kheer is ready to serve hot or cold...
• Enjoy with your family....

Doodh Dulari

Doodh Dulari is a popular sweet dish of Pakistan. This dessert is known to be the sweet of goodness in every Pakistani wedding. The name of the dish  "Doodh Dulari" can sound a little bit  funny but the taste can make you to fall in love with it. Well, when I came across this dish. I found this dish very complicated. But after trying I found it was very simple and creative one. The base for this recipe is regular shahi semiya kheer. And this kheer is then pamper with colorful gems like varieties of jellies, rasgullas or gulab jamuns, some nuts and finally fresh home made khoya or mawa is added. This dessert can be a big hit to any parties. Just a bowl of doodh dulari can compensate the whole pack of icecream. Without much delay, lets know how to make this royal doodh dulari.

Bombay Malai

Today I would like to share one of my favorite sweet and it is called Bombay Malai. 

This sweet has soft milky texture and very strong flavor of rose essence. I remember in Mumbai these sweet were sold by street hawker and they used to serve this sweet on some kind of edible leaf.

In my summer holidays, I would always like to spend half of my holidays in Mumbai with my cousins and half in my native. So my parents used to plan the trip to Mumbai so that they can meet our cousins and also we can plan to go to Shirdi to take the blessing of Shirdi Sai Baba. 

In this way my love towards this sweet started increasing and still whenever I visit, I crave for this sweet. But unfortunately after long 7 years when I returned back to Mumbai, I did not  find this sweet anymore. I missed it so much and then  thought to have my own recipe . I could experiment with the recipe but did not get that actual taste but was satisfied with the experimented recipe. One thing I found was the texture of the sweet was same as that of actual Malai. My hope are not over, my senses still says that they are available and I will definitely get one day to taste it. This sweet I prepared on Raksha Bandhan for my brother but the post was unnoticed and was left in the draft. So thought to post it today instead of posting it next year he he he he he!!!!

Rava Ladoo - Diwali Sweet

Rava ladoo is the sweet dumplings made up of semolina or rava. It is the most quick festive sweet that can be prepare in very short time. These ladoos are crumbly in its texture but they just softly melts into your mouth. Rava ladoo are the traditional sweet prepared on many occasions like Ganesh chaturthi, krishnashtami etc. And it is basically very famous in Maharashtra but now a days you find this sweet in every home. Nothing much to say about this known sweet. Make this ladoo on this diwali  and enjoy them.

Anjeer Barfi - Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

Wish you all a Happy Ganesh Chaturthi. Finally the days of Ganesh Chaturthi has begin. We are all are exciting to bring Lord Ganesh at our home by singing a song "Bappa Moreya re Bappa Moreya re". Yes this is the song we sing when we bring Lord Ganesha at our home. On this auspicious period,  people worship Lord ganesh idol for 1 day, 3 day, 5 days and sometimes for 11 days. These days are celebrated by performing puja, preparing delicious dishes and bursting of crackles. The sweets which is most liked by Lord Ganesh is Modak. Every home in these days prepare varieties of modak. This day brings out the fun and happiness in the home.
This year we are going to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi at my mother's home. Mom has prepared many kinds of sweets like ladoo, karanji, chakli etc. On my behalf I thought to prepare these anjeer barfi to offer to god, which will be little different from all those traditional sweet.
Anjeer barfi are very simple to prepare. These barfi includes some dates to bring the natural sweetness and some nuts that give crunchy texture in every bite. So lets see how to make this anjeer barfi.

Lapsi Sheera

Now a days people like to use daliya or lapsi or fada or cracked wheat  in their recipe in different way.  It is easily available in all Indian grocery stores.Daliya has high content of fibre and it really helps in energy boosting. Now a days you will find daliya in many variety from fine to coarse variety. There are many recipes too that can be made using daliya. It can be rich porrigde for morning breakfast, simple pulav or khichdi  and  also various sweet dishes. In Gujarat , people call daliya as fada , they  prepare this sweet dish which is serve mainly on navaratri. In Maharashtra,  people make daliya sheera on ugadi or chaturthi and on many festivals.

Earlier I had posted Lapsi pudding accompanied with strawberry jelly. Today I am here with the post of  Lapsi sheera . As I mentioned earlier, sheera recipes whether it is lapsi sheera or rava sheera are very famous in Maharashtra because you will mostly find them in complete thali of Maharashtra as one sweet dish along with shrikhand , puran poli and other dishes . Very soon I planning to post the complete Maharashtrian Thali, so thought to share this post  first so that  I can share it in detail. This is very simple making sweet dish with few ingredients and it tastes heavenly delicious. So lets see how to make it and stay tuned for my very soon upcoming Maharashtrian Thali.

The Magic Of Rasgullas

Rasgullas are the famous Bengali staple sweet. Bengali sweet starts with rasgullas and then the list goes on. Rasgullas are basically cheese balls cooked and soaked in the sugar syrup. Practice makes the best rasgullas with perfect texture and tastes. With base as rasgullas, you can make several other sweets like Rasmalai, Rasmaduri etc . So lets see how to make these soft and spongy rasgullas. If you have kids at home, you can try some coloured rasgullas and show the real magic to your kids. They will love and enjoy these pretty looking rasgullas.

For Making Paneer

• Whole Milk – 2 litres
• Lemon – 1 large
• Semolina – 1tbsp
• Sugar – 2 tsp

For Making Syrup

• Sugar – 2 cups
• Water – 6 cups
• Cardamom pods – 7 nos

For Magic

• You need few food colours and mix it in kneaded dough and follow the process as mentioned below

PREPARATION

• Bring the milk to boil. Keep stirring so that milk does not stuck at the bottom.
• When the milk rolls to boil, switch off the flame and slowly add lemon juice and keep stirring. The milk will start to curdles and cheese will separate from whey.
• Strain the curdle milk using cheese cloth.
• Collect the cheese in the cheese cloth and wash it under cold water to remove the sourness (taste of lemon juice) from the cheese.
• Tie up the cheese cloth and squeeze  out excess water. The best way is to hang the tied  cheese cloth to drain out the excess water.
• After 5 minutes, take the drained cheese onto the plate.Add semolina and sugar. Knead atleast for 5 minutes with back of your hands  until you get smooth mixture.

• Divide the dough into four balls
• Then divide each big ball into 5 small balls. Roll out each balls into perfect round ball.
• Like wise roll remaining cheese balls.
• For making syrup, combine water and sugar into wide bottomed pot. When syrup starts to boil, add crushed cardamom pods.
• Add cheese balls and cover the pan. Cook for 45 minutes.
• Syrup boiling for long time may thicken and make rasgullas hard. To avoid this add little warm water to the boiling syrup.
• After 45 minutes, switch off the flame. You will see rasgullas are double in size. As the rasgullas cool down they will shrink in size. Serve rasgullas cold or room temperature.

Ras Maduri

Ras maduri is the sweet basically made with rasgullas. Whenever you have leftover rasgullas , you can try this recipe and I am very sure within next  days you will make this sweet from scratch or atleast you will get rasgulla box from shop to make this sweet. Because I did the same and I was really in love with this ras maduri , the combination of juicy rasgullas and delicious sweetened mawa.
Here each rasgullas are cut into halves and then topped with mawa and then you can  decorate the way you like. This was my diwali special sweet for this year and my loved ones were really happy after they tasted this sweet. So lets go through the recipe.

INGREDIENTS

• Rasgullas – 8 pieces
• Mawa – ½ cup
• Powdered sugar – 2 tbsp
• Rose water – few drops
• Few food colour drops
• Truity fruity or any dry fruits to garnish
• Few cupcake liners

PREPARATION

• Cut each rasgullas into halves and let it remain soaked into the sugar syrup.
• Add few food colour drops into the syrup and stir well, so that rasgullas gets nice colour.
• Meanwhile prepare sweetened mawa.
• Take mawa onto the plate, add powdered sugar , few food colour drops and rose water. Knead  everything well till you get nice smooth mixture.
• Arrange cupcakes liners onto the plate and placed each halved rasgullas in the liners.
• Divide sweetened mawa according to the rasgullas portion and placed them on each portion. Then decorate with some truity fruity or dry fruits.
• Ras maduri is ready to serve.

BottleGourd Halwa -Dudhi halwa

 Bottlegourd or lauki or dudhi is the nutritious vegetable along with many many medicinal benefits. Sometimes such wonderful veggie are not eaten by the children. Do not worry here is the best way to convince your kids to have this gourd  by making sweet dish out of this bottlegourd, which is simply known as bottlegourd halwa, dudhi halwa or lauki ka halwa. Try out this dish and make your children to love this veggie.

INGREDIENTS

• Bottlegourd – 4 cups (grated)
• Milk powder – 2 tbsp or Mawa – ¼ cup
• Sugar – ¾ cup (adjust as per your sweetness)
• Ghee – ¼ cup
• Sliced almonds – ¼ cup
• Cardamom powder – ½ tsp

 PREPARATION

• Put the grated bottlegourd into a wide pan and stir till grated lauki is almost cooked and water is completely evaporated.
• Add in milk powder, sugar and half quantity of ghee. Stir continuously and cook until halwa starts leaving sides of the pan.
• Meanwhile heat rest quantity of ghee and fry almonds into it. Pour the fried almonds along with ghee into the cooked halwa. Cook again for 5 minutes on low flame.
• Bottlegourd halwa is ready to serve.

Banana Halwa

Banana halwa is the famous sweet dish  in northern part of India, Kerala. This halwa is usually prepared with special variety of banana , named as nendrampazham in kerala. But I used the normal variety of banana which I get in  grocery stores. Authenically this halwa needs a lot of practice of constant stirring. But nothing to worry, you can manage it by putting your little effort to enjoy this delicious halwa.  Do try and enjoy this  mouthwatering halwa.

INGREDIENTS

• Banana, riped - 4 nos
• Sugar - 3/4 cup
• Ghee - 1/2 cup
• Cardamom powder -1/2 tsp
• Broken cashewnut pieces - few

PREPARATION

• Peel the skin of bananas and blend it in the mixer till you get nice puree.
• Pour the banana puree and sugar in the non stick pan. Mix well and keep stirring continuously to avoid any sticking at the bottom.
• When the mixture starts to boil, add spoon ful of ghee at regular interval.
• When the consitency of halwa is thick, add in broken cashewnut  and mix well.
• Keep on stirring until the halwa leaves the sides . Then pour the halwa mixture onto the plate and spread it evenly. Allow the mixture to cool down and slice them into pieces.

Mango - Mawa Burfi

Mango is the royal fruit among all the other fruits. We can make variety of dishes using mango whether it is dessert, sweet, drink etc.
So today I am here with  Mango burfi which is prepared with mango puree and mawa. There are also several methods of making these mango burfi by using gram flour or simply with milk powder. If your planning to use gram flour or besan in the burfi, make sure you roast the besan in the ghee until it releases nice aroma and slightly changes it colour. Then add in mango puree and sugar.Further process remains the same.
As tested and proven these burfi  stays best for atleast 10 days in the refrigerator.

 

 INGREDIENTS

• Mango puree - 2 cups
• Mawa/Khoya - 1 cup
• Sugar - 3/4 cup to 1 cup ( adjust as per the sweetness of mangoes your using)
• Cashewnuts  - few ( To garnish)
• Almond  - few ( To garnish )
• Cardamom powder - 1 tsp 

PREPARATION

• Cut the cashewnuts and almonds into small pieces. Keep it aside for later use.
• Also grease one  plate to spread the cooked burfi mixture.
• Combine mawa, mango puree and sugar into wide bottomed pan and place it on medium flame.
• Cook the mixture till the mixture forms a thick consistency. Make sure to stir the mixture continuously to avoid any burnings at the bottom of the pan.
• When the mixture becomes thick and starts to leaves the sides of the pan. Add cardamom powder and mix well.
• Spread the mixture evenly on the  greased plate and garnish it with cashenuts and almonds.
• Let the mixture cool down completely. Then cut the burfi into desired shape.
• Mango burfi is ready to serve.
• Mango burfi stays best for atleast 10 days in the refrigerator. Tested and proven 

Mini Apple Milk Fudge/Milk Peda

During any festivities in childhood, pedas were the common delicacies. visitors used to come with pedas. More than the taste we used to be crazy for the various shapes of pedas such as dolls, fruits, vegetables etc. Tasting yummy, pedas were definitely the best sweet gift that i received and shared.

INGREDIENTS

• Ricotta cheese - 7 oz  
• Condensed milk -1/2  tin
• Ghee – 1 tbsp
• Cardamom powder – ½ tsp
• Yellow food color
• Red food color
• Cloves- 15 ( for stalk)

PREPARATION

• Heat ghee into a non stick pan and add ricotta cheese and condensed milk into the pan.
• Stir the mixture continuously till the whole thing reduces and becomes really thick.
• You can add little more ghee if you find the mixture  is till sticky.
• Then add cardamom powder and yellow food colour. Mix well till the mixture gets a nice yellow colour. Cook for 2 minutes and turn off the flame.
• Take out the dough into one plate and allow it to cool down till the dough is bearable to roll kit into small pedas.
• Grease your palms with little ghee and divide the mixture into 15 equal sized portion and smooth out each portion into round ball, avoid any cracks.
• Make a small dent with your little finger and put a clove upright into the center of the dent.
• Repeat the same with remaining dough mixture. Be fast because once the dough cools down it may become dry to smooth out the pedas.
• After you finish shaping the pedas finish off with a touch of red colour  at the top with small brush or damp paper towel. Allow them to dry for a while.
• Beautiful mini apples are ready to serve.