Badam Kheer | Almond Kheer | How to Make Badam Kheer | Festive Recipes

Badam Kheer / Almond Kheer #Recipe

This Badam Kheer /Almond Kheer is inspired by the traditional Kheer which is an Indian rice pudding. Instead of rice, I have used coarsely ground almonds in this badam kheer recipe.

On most festive and special occasions in India, Kheer finds a place in the menu. Be it a birthday or an occasion like Raksha Bandhan. There are many version of Kheer - the one with rice being the most common and popular. You can also check out my Carrot and Almond Kheer recipe here.

Sadly, I do not get to make kheer often at home as DH doesn't like it much. But, whenever I make it for myself, I make 2-3 servings and enjoy a bowl of kheer with every meal. I like my kheer to be creamy with cardamom and saffron, and there should be lots of dried nuts in it.

So, when I chose 'Festival/ Special Day' theme for week 4 of BM#78, I decided to make badam/almond kheer. With Raksha Bandhan around the corner, I think the recipe fitted the bill perfectly. This Badam Kheer is actually quite rich and should be served in small portion size.

Let's check out how I made Badam Kheer/ Almond Kheer from scratch.

Badam ki Kheer / Almond Kheer Recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1-litre full-fat milk
3 tbsp condensed milk
1 tbsp sugar
¼ cup almonds
2 cardamoms, powdered
10 strands of saffron, soaked in 1 tbsp milk
Almond slivers, chopped pistachios of garnishing

Process:

1. Soak almonds in water for an hour. Drain the water after an hour and soak them in hot water for 5 minutes. Peel off the skin from the almonds and grind them into a rough paste.

2. Boil milk in a deep non-stick pan. Let it simmer on low to medium flame for about 15 minutes, such that the milk reduces to about 3/4th volume.

3. Add the almond paste and boil the milk for another 7-10 minutes. Depending on how thick and creamy you like the kheer, you can boil it for another 10 minutes or so.

4. Add the condensed milk and sugar and stir well. Add cardamom and saffron milk. Stir again and take it off heat.

5. Let it cool down and then you can transfer it to a serving bowl and keep in the fridge to chill.

6. Serve it chilled with almonds and pistachio garnishing.

Notes:

1.       If you do not have condensed milk, you can skip it and add more sugar for sweetness. I had some leftover condensed milk so I used it in the recipe.

2.       This kheer takes best when served chilled.

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No Bake Dates & Nuts Brownies | No Bake Brownie Recipe

No Bake Dates and Nuts Brownies. #Recipe

No Bake Dates and Nuts Brownies is the answer if you are looking for a healthy and quick snack to munch on.

I had long wanted to try a no-bake brownie. But, being an ardent chocolate lover I had my doubts if such a brownie will be worth the try.

Well, we will never know about it unless we try. So for the 3rd day of the blogging marathon under the 'brownie theme,' I decided to try yet another version of our beloved brownies - No Bake & Raw Dates and Nuts Brownies.

I used this recipe as an inspiration to come up with my version. I didn't use chocolate ganache as I wanted to make it as healthy as possible. 

Let's check the recipe:

No Bake Dates and Nuts Brownies.

Ingredients:

1 cup dates, pitted and halved
1/2 cup almonds
1/4 cup walnuts
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp Bournvita powder (optional)

Process:

1. Line a 6 inch tin with parchment paper and set aside.
2. In a blender jar, add the pitted dates and blend it till it looks like a fudgy mess. Take it out into a large bowl.
3. Now finely powder the almonds in the same jar, followed by walnuts. I then added them together again in the blender jar together for a quick mix.
4. Add it to the bowl again, add cocoa powder and bournvita powder (if using). Using a spatula mix it and then tip it into the parchment-lined cake tin.
5. Spread it evenly and press it to get an even surface. Dust some cocoa powder or bournvita powder over the set brownies.
6. Let it sit for 10 minutes and then slice it. They are ready to devour.

Here are my thoughts on the No Bake Dates & Nuts Brownies

1. For those looking for really healthy brownies, it is a good choice. You can alter the quantities of nuts to suit your taste. Walnuts might give a slightly bitter taste in the end. So, you can use just 2 tbsp of it or skip altogether.

2. I think they tasted best after a day. The first day they tasted like dates and nut bar. But, on the second day, the flavour of cocoa was more pronounced giving it a good chocolatey taste.

3. If you want to make it more decadent, go ahead and cover the brownies with a layer of chocolate ganache. Or you might add some ganache into the dates and nuts mix. In that case, you might have to let the set brownies rest for a while before you slice to get neat slices.

Want to try some other brownies? I have got you covered. Check these recipes.

Eggless Nutella Brownies

Eggless Chocolate Brownies

Eggless Fudge Brownies

One Bowl Eggless Brownies

Sinful Eggless Walnut Brownies

3 Minutes Microwave Brownies

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Bourbon Biscuit Brownies | Easy Bourbon Biscuit Brownie Recipe

Bourbon Biscuit Brownies #Recipes

These Bourbon Biscuit Brownies are perfect for days when you have a sudden urge to have brownies, but do not have any ingredients on hand to bake it? Or maybe you want to bake a brownie but do not have the time to follow a super lengthy recipe.

If you have ever faced such a situation, then this recipe will come to your rescue. For the 2nd day of my brownie theme Blogging Marathon, I decided to post this quick-fix brownie recipe. With just a handful of ingredients making brownies this way is a breeze.

This is cheat's version where bourbon biscuits are used as a vital ingredient – no need for additional flour, sugar, or butter. Looks too good to be true, try the recipe yourself.

Bourbon Biscuit Brownies

Ingredients:

200 grams Bourbon biscuits

50 grams digestive biscuits

2-3 tablespoon Bournvita powder
1 tbsp cocoa powder

About  ¾ cup +2 tbsp milk

1 tsp plain Eno Fruit Salt 

Butter or oil to grease the pan

Process:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease an 8” square cake tin and line it with parchment
2. In a mixer jar, add the broken digestive biscuits, bourbon biscuits and churn it into a powder.
3. Take a large bowl and tip in the biscuit powder, add Bournvita powder, cocoa powder, and stir. Add milk little by little and whisk to get a smooth batter.
4. Add the Eno Salt to the batter and give it a quick stir. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.
5. When baked, insert a skewer in the middle to see it comes out clean.
6. Take it out of the oven and let it cool down for 10 minutes. You can then lift the brownies out of the pan along with the parchment.

6. Once, the brownie has cooled down to room temperature, slice it into squares and serve with a generous drizzling of chocolate sauce.

Notes:

1. These brownies are not intensely chocolatey. So, it is best to serve them with a drizzle of chocolate sauce.

2. You can also add 1/2 cup choco chip or chocolate chunks in the batter for an intense chocolate flavour.

3. This recipe should also work with any other chocolate flavoured cream biscuits, like oreo, etc. Instead of digestive biscuits Marie biscuits or Milk Bikies can also be used.

Still, want to try making brownies the traditional way – check out some other recipes already posted here.

Eggless Nutella Brownies

Eggless Chocolate Brownies

Eggless Fudge Brownies

One Bowl Eggless Brownies

Sinful Eggless Walnut Brownies

3 Minutes Microwave Brownies

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Eggless Fudge Brownie with Beets | Eggless Beetroot Chocolate Brownies Recipe

Eggless Fudge Brownie with Beets. #Recipe

Eggless Fudge Brownie with Beets is a winner recipe. Quite healthy, easy to make and tastes quite awesome.

If there is one thing that can make me forget all about conscious eating and diet control – it is chocolate. There are times when I do control myself from having that extra piece of the chocolate bar. But, on most occasions, it has the better of me. That’s why I prefer not having any chocolate bars at home. Perfect solution, isn’t it?

The intense chocolate flavour in fudge brownies is perhaps one of the reasons why I prefer them over cake any day. Give me a slice of soft, dense chocolatey brownie and I will wander into my chocolate nirvana. When I saw Srivalli had listed a brownie theme in the 78th edition of the Blogging Marathon, I instantly chose it.

I have already tried a number of brownie recipes and have shared a couple of them here. Check out these

Eggless Nutella Brownies
Eggless Chocolate Brownies
Eggless Fudge Brownies
One Bowl Eggless Brownies
Sinful Eggless Walnut Brownies
3 Minutes Microwave Brownies

Yet, there are so many brownie variations that are on my to-do list. I have seen many brownies with chocolate and beetroot combination doing rounds on the internet. So, I decided to try it myself. I used this recipe for fudge brownies as a standard and tweaked it to come up with this recipe. 

After having a slice of these beetroot fudge brownies, I realized beetroot and chocolate is a winning combination. There is no trace of any beetroot flavour. Unless you tell anyone, no one will ever make out this secret ingredient in the recipe. I used wheat flour and oil in this recipe to make it even healthier. Check out my recipe below.

Eggless Fudge Brownies with Beets

Ingredients:

½ cup whole wheat flour or atta

¼ cup Maida or all-purpose flour

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp instant coffee

100 g dark chocolate

½ cup beet puree

½ cup powdered sugar + 2 tbsp brown sugar

¼ cup oil

¼ cup whisked yoghurt

¼ cup to ½ cup water

2 tbsp chopped walnuts

Process:

1. Line an 8” square brownie pan with parchment paper and set aside. Preheat the oven to 180 C.

2. In a large bowl add atta, maida, cocoa powder, coffee, and baking powder. Use a whisk to mix everything together. Set aside.

3. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and add it to a medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave it for 1 minute so that it melts. Whisk it to get smooth melted chocolate. To it add oil and stir. Add sugar and stir it again. Now add yoghurt and beets puree and whisk it nicely.

4. Add this wet ingredients mixture to the dry ingredients mixture. Add ¼ cup water and whisk to make a smooth batter. If the batter looks thick, add another ¼ cup water. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and top it with chopped walnuts.

5. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes. When done, a skewer inserted in the middle should come out clean.

6. Let it cool for 10-15 minutes before you can lift it from the pan along with the parchment paper. Slice and serve.

Notes:

1. To prepare beets puree, I pressure cooked 2 medium beets. When cooled, I peeled and chopped them and churned in a mixer jar to get the puree.

2. For fudge brownies, I prefer lining the tin with parchment. Since fudge brownies are quite soft and mushy, it is easier to lift the brownies out of the tin along with the parchment.

3. Slice them after the brownie has cooled a bit for neat slices.

4. You can do away with the maida in the recipe and add whole wheat flour or oats flour instead.

5. You can also double the beets puree and omit the yoghurt and half the water amount to get red looking brownies.

6. I had run out my regular powdered sugar, so I used 2 tbsp of brown sugar. You can regular sugar too.

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Thandai Kulfi Recipe | How to Make Thandai Kulfi from Scratch

Thandai Kulfi #Recipe

Thandai Kulfi is a rich kulfi and is full of flavours from the Thandai Syrup. If you have some ready to use Thandai syrup, making these is just a breeze.

Kulfi or Ice-cream? What do you like more?

I prefer kulfi over a scoop of ice-cream any day. 

Period.

This recipe has been there in my drafts for a long while. I had made these to use up the last bits of the Homemade Thandai Syrup I had made for Holi. Since I had not posted anything in a long while here, I decided to share this one to cut short my absence from this space.

By the way, have you ever made Thandai Syrup at home? If not, try it the next festive reason - I bet you will never want to buy a bottle of readymade syrup ever. It comes out THAT GOOD. 

Coming back to the recipe for today, I just used the thandai syrup to flavour and sweeten the thickened milk used for making these kulfis. Since Thandai syrup is already flavoured with nuts, cardamom, saffron, etc., there is no need to add anything more.

These kulfi were just perfect - with just the right flavour of Thandai. I am going to make these again whenever I made the thandai syrup. Let's check out the recipe.

Thandai Kulfi Recipe

Ingredients:

800 ml full-fat milk.

3 tbsp milk powder

1/4 cup thandai syrup ( Have you tried this Homemade Thandai Syrup yet?)

2 tsp cornflour stirred in 1 tbsp milk

Process:

1. In a non-stick pan, heat milk. When it comes to a boil, turn the heat to medium and let it simmer till it reduces to about half in volume. It can take about 25-30 minutes. Keep stirring in between and scrap the sides too.

2. Add the milk powder, cornflour mixture and stir well. Heat for another 5 minutes. Corn flour helps in further thickening the milk and thus giving it a creamy texture. Add the thandai syrup and stir again. Turn off the heat.

3. Let it cool down to room temperature and then fill the liquid into the kulfi moulds.

6. Freeze it for 8 hours or overnight.

7. Take the kulfi out of the freezer, 5 minutes ahead of serving.  Unmould and serve immediately.

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Here are some more KULFI recipes that you can try:

Dulce de Leche Malai Kulfi
Quick No Cook Malai Kulfi
Cardamom Kulfi
Malai Kulfi - Using Condensed Milk

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