Badam mithai or Almond Burfi

Some people have a sweet tooth and some prefer savory stuff, I am bracketed into the second category. Growing up I never cared much for sweets as long as I had my deep fried snacks and hot, spicy pickles and used to give a hard time to nammamma on festivals not even touching the sweets she made. On one of those occasions, anna (my father) said simply, 'Don't refuse sweets, you will be refusing the sweetness in life', and it had a big impact. I don't say no to sweets now even if I eat a little bit of it and I honestly believe what he was saying was not to blindly refuse something I thought I didn't like but to go out and try everything life had to offer, may be I am reading too much into his simple words but for me my dad has been the greatest role model and I miss him..

Funnily though, over the years I have developed a strong liking to some sweets and all of a sudden crave for something sweet especially after a heavy lunch on a weekend, I have had my other friends & sister tell me they experience it too, may be it is a female thing..And the craving is so bad that I have to have something sweet. I like dark chocolates and keep them handy for those crazy moments. Other than me, everybody at home love sweets, especially amma. She is more of a jaggery sweet person and goes about adding jaggery to everything and she has been after me since last month to add more sweet dishes on the blog, and finally here I am with my second sweet on Sattvaa.

When I was not a blogger and didn't even have a thought about food blogging, one day I happened to stumble on Indira's Mahanandi with the help of Google. I was hooked to the pictures and her way of bringing a dish to life on the internet. When I thought of creating my own food blog, I remembered Indira and went back to see what was happening on Mahanandi, looks like she is taking a break. I wish her the very best in whatever her current pursuits are. She has blogged about Badam burfi, if you want to look at her version of it.

Burfis are very tasty and easy to make if you give them the right amount of TLC (tender loving care) and complete attention they expect out of you, avoid multi tasking with the sweet recipes. Nammamma & my SIL are experts in making melt in the mouth mysore pak and badam burfi respectively. I am a very later bloomer in this genre, infact, until recently I used tell my family they would get halwa on a good day and burfi on a better day when I set out to make it :-), I do believe I have come close to getting the elusive consistency right. So here is an easy to make, delicious and packed with nutrition - Badam burfi.

What do you need to make Badam burfi?
3 cups badam/almonds
2 and 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
A generous pinch of cardamom powder
4-5 drops of ghee/clarified butter

How do you make Badam burfi?

• Soak almonds in hot water for 30-45 minutes.
• Remove the skin of almonds by giving the soaked nuts a gentle squeeze between your fingers.
• Spread them in a single layer on paper towels/dry cloth until the moisture is gone and the nuts feel dry to touch. 
• Make a powder by pulsing them in your blender, don't grind as the nuts turn into a paste with their oils. 
• Heat a heavy, thick bottom pan on medium heat, add water & sugar and bring them a boil. 
• Keep stirring until you get the sugar syrup of the right consistency - after about 15 minutes, put a couple of drops of the syrup into a bowl with cold water, if the sugar turns into a soft ball the syrup is ready, else keep stirring it further. 
• After many trials & errors, I have realized that the soft ball consistency is reached a little before the single thread consistency, so when you lift the syrup with the ladle and let it drop it should not be threading yet. 
• As soon as you see the syrup ready, pour the almond and cardamom  powder into it and keep stirring continuously. 
• Within 5-7 minutes, you will see the mixture leaving the sides of your pan, pour the mixture into a ghee smeared plate/tray and spread it evenly. 
• Draw lines with a knife to get desired shapes of the burfi. 
• Let the burfi cool completely before cutting them.  

Note: 

• Because of the grainy texture of my almond powder, the burfi looked similar to the kobbari mithai.  I plan to make the powder a little more smooth next time.
• I haven't added any ghee except to prepare the plate but you can add ghee if you like a richer taste. 

 Tips:

• Do the entire process in medium to medium low heat, keep your focus on the syrup and use a thick bottom pan. 
• If you missed the consistency of the syrup and went to threading stage, add a couple of Tblsp of water to start the process over, but do not do this more than once as you might as well resign to the fact of eating a 'not burfi looking' sweet :-)

• Once you pour the burfi into the greased plate, wet your hands in cold water and gently coax the mixture to spread evenly to the edges of the plate, you will get a natural moisturizer to your hands - one of the fringe benefits of of this exercise.