Shahi Badam Kulfi

Kulfi, the Indian ice-cream, is loved by all. Expats vouch for its taste and dismiss the whipped vanilla ice creams in its favor. Although Kulfi can be purchased like regular ice cream outside India, its not very hard to make it yourself. The one demonstrated here is extremely simple and turns out to be better than ones locally available in Indian restaurants. Give this a try.

Preparation time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Ingredients

1 litre evaporated milk (full cream)
500ml cream (30gm fat/100ml variety or equivalent)
175 gms sugar
100 gms badam
Seeds of 30 medium green cardamom pods
20 gm (2 tsp) corn flour


Preparation

Soak the badam in water for 2 hrs and then dry grind (coarse) them as shown below:



Method

[1] Take a thick bottom pan and put the evaporated milk (This milk is the regular milk which has been reduced to half) and the cream.


[2] Keep boiling on slow flame stirring most of the time till the milk-cream mixture is reduced to 4/5th. This should take between 30-40 minutes.

[3] Add the ground badam to the milk.

[4] Add all the sugar (Recommended that you adjust the sugar quantity as per your liking)

[5] Add the crushed elaichi seeds. (The image below is of seeds that need to be crushed)



[6] Now keep boiling for around 15 minutes

[7] Mix the corn flour in minimum water and add it to the milk. This would thicken the mixture.


[8] Boil for 2-3 minutes and remove from flame



[9] Once cooled, transfer to disposable cups as shown below. Fill the cups to 1/3rd capacity


[10] Freeze for atleast 8 hrs.


Serving

30 minutes before serving, remove the Kulfi from the freezer and keep it in the fridge. This makes the Kulfi a bit soft. To remove the Kulfi , immerse the cup into a bowl containing warm water. This will loosen the Kulfi. Invert it on a plate and give it a light tap. Garnish with more badam.



Variations

Kulfi can be made in similar fashion with the following Indian flavors:

• Rose
• Kesar
• Kewda
• Pista

Gotchas

The below are very important:

• Only thick bottomed or heavy guage vessels should be used for making Kulfi
• All prepartion on low flame only to avoid burning of milk
• Keep stirring most of the time