Kulfi
An Indian ice older than European ice-cream machines — by tradition born at the Mughal court, where milk with pistachios was frozen in metal cones packed in Himalayan ice. Kulfi is never churned or stirred as it freezes, so it holds no air: dense, creamy and slow to melt. All its structure comes from milk reduced by half, in which browned milk solids bring a nutty flavour.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Reducing the milk 45 min
- Spices 5 min
- Cooling 30 min
- Freezing 450 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneReduce the milk in a wide pan
Bring the milk to a boil in a wide, heavy-based pan and cook over medium heat 40–45 minutes, until reduced by half. A wide base speeds evaporation, a heavy one prevents catching.
Ingredients: 1500 ml whole milk · 200 g sweetened condensed milk · 150 ml whipping cream (30%)
A wide pan and half the volume — that is the creaminess.Scrape the skin from the sides back in
Every few minutes scrape the milk dried on the sides with a spatula and stir it back in. These browned flecks (khurchan in Hindi) give kulfi its characteristic slightly grainy texture and nutty taste.
Ingredients: 1500 ml whole milk · 200 g sweetened condensed milk · 150 ml whipping cream (30%)
Add the condensed milk and cream
Stir in the condensed milk and cream and cook 5 minutes more, stirring across the base. The condensed milk sweetens and thickens further — it is what keeps kulfi from freezing into hard ice.
Ingredients: 1500 ml whole milk · 200 g sweetened condensed milk · 150 ml whipping cream (30%)
Stir in the spices and nuts
Take off the heat and stir in the cardamom, saffron crumbled between your fingers, pistachios and almonds. Cardamom and saffron stirred into the hot milk off the heat release their aroma and colour well.
Ingredients: 8 pcs cardamom · 1 pinch saffron · 60 g pistachios · 30 g almonds · 1 tsp rose water
Spices off the heat — the aroma stays.Cool completely
Cool the mixture to room temperature in a bowl set in iced water, stirring now and then so no skin forms. Add the rose water. Warm mixture heats the freezer and partly thaws other food.
Ingredients: 8 pcs cardamom · 1 pinch saffron · 60 g pistachios · 30 g almonds · 1 tsp rose water
Pour into moulds
Pour into conical kulfi moulds, ice-lolly moulds or small cups. Stir before each portion — the nuts sink, and without stirring the first moulds get none.
Ingredients: 8 pcs cardamom · 1 pinch saffron · 60 g pistachios · 30 g almonds · 1 tsp rose water
Stir before each pour — the nuts sink.Freeze at least seven hours
Cover the moulds with film, push in sticks and freeze at least 7 hours, ideally overnight. Do not stir — kulfi freezes without aeration, which is what gives its dense, creamy texture.
Ingredients: 1500 ml whole milk · 200 g sweetened condensed milk · 150 ml whipping cream (30%)
Release by warming the moulds in your hands
Before serving hold each mould in your hands or dip it 10 seconds in warm water and draw the kulfi out by its stick. In India it is also sliced and served with falooda noodles and rose syrup.
Ingredients: 8 pcs cardamom · 1 pinch saffron · 60 g pistachios · 30 g almonds · 1 tsp rose water
Before you start
Do not shortcut the reduction
Quick kulfi recipes use only condensed milk and cream, without reducing. They are good but taste like ordinary cream ice. The nutty, faintly caramel flavour of real kulfi comes only from the long reduction.
Flavour versions
Classic kulfi is malai (cream with cardamom) and pistachio. Also popular are mango kulfi with mango purée, kesar with double saffron and gulab with rose water. The base never changes.
A month in the freezer
Kulfi keeps a month in the freezer in tightly covered moulds. Kept longer, it picks up freezer smells and loses its cardamom aroma.
