Basundi (Sweetened Milk)is an Indian dessert popular in Maharashtra and Gujarat. It is
a calorie rich, scrumptious dessert prepared by simmering the milk for a
long time until it reduced to half of its volume, finally flavored with saffron, almonds and pistachios. This is one of my top favorite sweet. I used to eat a lot in
my college days as my father used to get me basundi every week from
Agarwal sweets, chennai. My husband has not tasted it before so I made
this easy and tasty sweet for diwali. Addition of almonds and pistachios
adds a nice crunch to this creamy dessert. Saffron imparts color and
flavor to the dish. When you make basundi , always scrap the sides of
vessel while cooking, as that will make the basundi thick and imparts
creamy texture. It is served as a dessert or sweet accompaniment in
lunch or during any Indian festivals like diwali. Also it tastes
great with gulab jamun or hot mapluas.. 
Ingredients
3 Cups of Milk (2 % or Full Fat)
3-4 Tbsp of White Sugar
20 Saffron Strands
10 Almonds, Chopped
10 Cashews, Chopped
10 Pistachios, Chopped
Pinch Of Nutmeg Powder
3 Cardamom, Powdered
1 Tsp of Ghee (Melted Butter), Optional
To Garnish
Almonds and Pistachios
Method
- Chop the almonds, cashews and pistachios . Powder the cardamom with mortar and pestle.
- Soak the saffron in 2 tsp of warm milk and keep this aside.
- Take a heavy bottomed vessel, add the milk, bring the milk to boil and reduce the flame, cook on the slow flame, till the volume is reduced to half of its volume. Keep on stirring and continuously scrap the sides and bottom of the pan, otherwise the milk would get stick to the bottom.
- Once the milk reduced to half of its volume, this would take 30 mins, add all the chopped nuts(almonds, cashews and pistachios), nutmeg powder, cardamom powder and saffron cook this for another 15-20 mins in a slow flame, keep on stirring, otherwise you would get burnt flavor.
- After the milk thickened and got a nice flaky layer of cream on top, add sugar and mix well, cook for another 10 mins and turn off the flame.
- Serve warm or chilled garnished with almonds and pistachios .
- I love chilled basundi as it tastes divine and it thickens more when it is chilled.
Tips- Adjust the amount of sugar according to your taste.
- You can also use evaporated or condensed milk in place of full cream or 2% milk.
- You can also make flavored basundi by the addition of strawberry or oranges after step 3, to make strawberry basundi or orange basundi respectively.
- Addition of nutmeg powder is for easy digestion.
- If you use condensed milk or evaporated milk, do not add sugar to it.
- Addition of saffron gives a nice color and flavor.
- Always use heavy bottomed pan to make it otherwise milk will burn and stick to the pan.
- When you keep basundi in fridge, make sure the consistency is thin and otherwise it would turn thick on next day.
