Dry Fruits & Strawberry Basundi

Dry Fruits & Strawberry Basundi

Serves Five 6 oz custard bowls

Ingredients 

1. Whole Milk 1 gallon

2. Condensed Milk 11/2 cup

3. Toppings of your choice(I added chopped pistacchios, slivered almonds & thinly sliced strawberries)

Method Of Preparation 

1. Take a heavy bottomed pan & add milk to it.

2. Put it on a very low flame on the gas.

3. Let the milk come to a boil gently. 

4. Keep stirring in regular intervals to prevent the milk from getting burnt or sticking to the bottom of the pan.

5. As the milk keeps boiling, it thickens. 

6. As the milk thicken, there will be milk solids forming on the sides of the pan & cream on the top.

7. Using a ladle, scrape the solids & cream off & add it back to the milk & continue stirring.

8. You need to condense the milk to 1/3 rd of its original quantity. It needs to thicken till it gets a very very light brown shade(see the 3rd picture below)

9. Add some condensed milk & stir the mixture for 30 seconds till it forms a uniform mixture & then turn off the gas.

10. Add all kinds of nuts & dry fruits & let the mixture cool & then refrigerate it for 2 hours.

11. Serve the basundhi chilled/hot/warm.

12. If your going to serve it hot/warm, then you needn't refrigerate it...

Notes

1. Use a heavy bottomed pan to condense the milk.

2. Never put the flame on high when boiling the milk. Always boil on a very low flame from the start till the end. 

3. Adding cardamom powder is completely optional. I did not add anything as I wanted to keep it plain & simple.

4. Saffron gives the sweet a nice yellow color but I haven't added it as I just wanted it to have the natural color without adding anything.

5. If your adding fresh fruits to the basundhi, then add it only at the time of serving. Do not add it before refrigerating. Add it just before serving.