You will love this dish if you love coconut. It’s made with just coconut and sweetened condensed milk. Isn’t that simple ;). It is usually made during diwali time. Or you can make it for any festival. You can make them even if there is no festival, no harm :). Kids love coconut a lot.
I made them with desiccated coconut. Generally freshly grated coconut makes better barfi. But I used desiccated coconut and found this simple and delicious. There are different ways to make this. But this is my personal way to do a quick coconut barfi. I just wanted to add color to it and try, so added saffron. You can even color powder, but I would say NO. Adding color is not good for health. So I would always prefer saffron.
For cardamon powder, I always grind cardamon and sugar together.
Now the recipe:
- Sweetened Condensed milk – 1 cup
- Desiccated coconut – 1½ cup
- Ghee/Butter – 1 tsp
- Milk – 2 tbsp
- Cardamon – 2, crushed
- Sugar – 1 tsp
- Almonds/pistachios – 5, chopped
- Desiccated coconut – ¼ cup for rolling
- Dissolve saffron powder in hot water and set aside.
- Heat the ghee and toast the almonds/pistachios till it turns golden. Drain and keep it aside.
- To the same pan, add the 1-cup of desiccated coconut. Toast for a minute.
- To the same pan, pour the condensed milk on it. Mix well and cook on low flame.
- Crush the cardomon and sugar. Add it to the pan and add the two tbsp of milk.
- Cook it until the mixture gets quite thick. It will take around 6 mins. If you have doubt to when you can switch off the heat, it is when the spatula will refuse to get stir any more and mixture will almost stick to your spatula.br]
- Divide the mixture into two equal parts, and keep one part aside. And add saffron water to the other and stir it till the water gets evaporated. Switch off the mixture when it is in right consistency.
- On a butter-greased plate, add the saffron mixture, tap it with a ghee-coated spatula to flatten it. Top with the plan coconut mixture and flatten top.
- Place it in fridge to cool for an hour. Then cut the mixture into square shaped or desire shape.
- Season with some desiccated coconut and toasted almonds/pistachios.
- You can store them in airtight container up to four days. I refrigerate them as it is coconut based dish.
2. You can also use fresh coconut but you can’t store it for long time. So I prefer to use desiccated coconut. And also you have to cook the fresh coconut for a longer time since fresh coconut can be moister.
3. Use ghee/ butter greased spatula to flatten it. Even use a ghee coated knife to cut it easily.
