Cardamom, Rosewater and Saffron Kulfi

About 10 years ago, a friend of the family was visiting family in India, and she very kindly bought me some kulfi moulds. So the other week when I made Dharm's lovely wife's curry, I thought it was about time I used them... and of course, by the time we'd eaten curry, aubergine, lentils, rice and pineapple, we really didn't have enough room for dessert!

Still, it never hurt anyone to have some icecream stowed away in the freezer.

The really special thing about the kulfi moulds is that they are handmade, so the thread on each lid only fits its own mould. Hence the purple nailpolish numbering so that I can keep them matched up.

This is a cheating version of kulfi that I made up after reading lots and lots of other recipes - it uses condensed and evaporated milk, instead of carefully cooking down fresh milk the way you are supposed to. Still, it tastes good; sweet and perfumed. I used reduced fat versions of all the dairy products in it, and it worked OK - but feel free to use full-fat.

Easy Kulfi

1 can reduced fat evaporated milk
1 can reduced fat sweetened condensed milk
300ml reduced fat thickened cream
The seeds of 3 green cardamom pods
Rosewater to taste
Pinch of saffron threads

In a mortar and pestle, crush the cardamom seeds and saffron to a powder and mix with the other ingredients. The specks of saffron will start to bleed beautiful patches of gold into the mix, and you can either wait until they have infused thoroughly, and the mixture is a fairly uniform colour, but I like the almost marbled look.

Pour the mixture into your kulfi moulds (or a loaf tin lined with cling film) and freeze. Kulfi freezes hard, so there is a balance to be struck between being too hard to eat and melting. Some passionfruit or other tangy fruit would be good with it, too moderate the sweetness a bit, but Indian desserts do tend to be very sweet! If I'd had a bit of edible gold leaf I think I would have had to use it.