Food | How to make the best Kulfi

How to make the best Kulfi

This popular frozen Indian ice cream just requires 4 ingredients to make, a little time and patience, but in the end totally worth it.

The pic above you see is of “Anjeer Kulfi” or fig and walnut Indian ice cream that I made last week, a frozen dessert commonly found in south Asian countries and cuisines. It tastes as good as it looks. It only requires 4 ingredients – whole milk (the best quality you can get your hands on) along with the spice, the sweetener and the flavoring of your choice. It requires no special equipment. Just a saucepan and a refrigerator.

The only hiccup is you need a few hours to make it. The purist in me refuses to take the often short cut method of adding one of the many thickeners such as commercial condensed milk, cornflour, arrow root , rice flour or double cream to quickly make the custard like texture required to freeze it. If I were to add any of these, then it is no longer the authentic “kulfi” that I am going after. In fact most links I see online are just variations of adding in these thickeners. Are you thinking “Life is too short to waste few hours stirring milk in a pan. I have the best ice cream shop around my block, so I could buy one from there?” I know, I think that too but if you are after a DIY food project, want to make a new dessert controlling the quality of ingredients going in, want to personalize the sweetness or like me trying to recreate childhood food memories, then I urge you to give this one a shot.

The key to getting the kulfi right, is to first simmer milk in a deep saucepan on very low heat and reduce it to one-third the original quantity of milk. However as milk burns and will stick to the bottom of the pan quickly, you have to keep stirring with a spoon or spatula every few minutes. The larger the quantity of milk, the longer it will take to reduce. So I chose to start with 1 liter of fresh whole milk, stirring it religiously for about an hour to 1 hour 15 minutes to reduce it down to about one third. Maybe the perfect time to switch on one of those podcasts you have been wanting to listen to this week? The low heat and constant stirring creates a rich creamy caramel flavor and when reduced the milk thickens to a light brown custardy mix. You can add in spices and a sweetener of your choice halfway down the simmering process. I chose crushed cardamom seeds here. For sweetening, because I used fresh figs roasted in the oven, they already gave a good fruit sugar boost to the milky custard. If making kulfi without any sweet fruit, the best options I would recommend are jaggery or dark brown coconut sugar just because they can provide a nice treacle kinda molasses like flavor to the already caramel taste of the reduced milk.

Below are the quick steps to make this kulfi. See also the notes on most common flavors and other possible combinations. Of course there should be nothing stopping you from experimenting with new flavors, fruits and spices that you can think of 🙂

Notes

1) I have used fresh figs here that were roasted in the oven with a drizzle of honey (fresh figs from the bounty that we picked at Thornbrook Orchards and I wrote all about it in my previous post). You can of course use dried figs as fresh figs are not available all year round. Just soak the dried figs in water and blitz into a coarse wet mix.

2) Use the best quality fresh whole milk you can afford and can get your hands on. Here in Sydney, I find milk from the Pines Kiama, Barambah Organics or Country Valley the best to use.

3) Kulfi is normally frozen in stainless steel conical shaped moulds. I didn’t have these traditional moulds so have used the plastic Popsicle like moulds that are cheap as chips to buy.

4) Other common flavour combinations that do exist

Malai Kulfi : Plain creamy kulfi with cardamom seeds, milk and jaggery
Pistachio Kulfi (one of our favorites): Crushed cardamom seeds, soaked pistachios grinded into a paste, jaggery and milk.
Rose Kulfi : Rose water, rose petal jam, milk and jaggery
Kesar (a.k.a. Saffron) Kulfi: Saffron threads first added in warm milk in a small bowl. Then add into the reduced milk with crushed nuts and sweetener of your choice
Badam (a.k.a. Almond) Kulfi: Same as pistachio but replace it with almonds
Mango Kulfi – crushed cardamom seeds or saffron threads, mangoes pulped and added into the reduced milk

Recipe

Ingredients for Fig (Anjeer) and Walnut Kulfi

10-12 fresh figs with a drizze of honey

1 litre of whole fresh milk

½ teaspoon crushed cardamom seeds

50 grams of jaggery (optional in this case and pronounced jag-uh-reey)

Handful of crushed walnuts (optional)

Steps on how to make the kulfi

If using fresh figs, cut the figs into quarters. Drizzle with honey and roast in an oven at 180 deg centigrade for 20 minutes until soft and brown. Once the figs have cooled down, blitz in a blender. If using dried figs, blitz the soaked dried figs in water in the blender. You are after a semi thick paste with few chunks of the figs remaining.
Meanwhile simmer the milk in a deep sauce pan. Keep stirring every few minutes with a spatula, scraping anything from the bottom of the pan. Skim the cream being formed and mix it back into the milk. Keep simmering and stirring constantly to avoid the milk from burning and sticking to the bottom of the pan. This process should be carried out to reduce the milk to one third of its the original quantity.
Halfway through the milk reduction process, add in the crushed cardamom seeds and jaggery. Keep stirring
As the milk reduces, it will turn thick and creamy in texture. It will brown with a rich caramel like flavor owing to the jaggery and heating process. Once reduced add in the already blitz figs and the crushed walnuts.
Let the milk and fig mixture cool a bit before pouring it into the kulfi / Popsicle moulds. Freeze overnight in a refrigerator
Before eating, keep the frozen kulfi moulds at room temperature for 10-15 minutes. If eating immediately, rinse the sides of the mould in warm water for a few minutes. Then squeeze the mould with both hands as if you are squeezing out toothpaste and the conical shaped frozen kulfi should slide out easily.
You can roll the kulfi Popsicle in ground walnuts before finally biting into it.