Coconut Burfi - a do it yourself video

Diwali came and went. There was no time to make any special sweets. San did make some delicious Badam Kheer to celebrate at home. 

Diwali felt incomplete unless some raw material is convereted to a finished product in the kitchen with some contribution from me.. just kidding..

There was a coconut that was part of the Lakshmi pooja that had to be grated. It is not "auspicious" to let that special coconut get spoilt. So, over the weekend, I decided to convert that into a coconut burfi. Please note: What you see below is not a normal sight in our house.. it is an anomaly. 

The last time I made this was almost a decade ago, in the pre video blogging days. 

The kids helped make the video. Apologies for the "uncut" version. 

Recipe is simple : 

Grate coconut. Eyeball how many cups of grated coconut you have (say 1 cup). Add same measure of sugar to same measure of water and stir to get sugar syrup thick enough. Don't let it caramelize. 

Add coconut to sugar syrup and stir like no tomorrow. Then add cashews roasted in excess ghee (clarified butter) to this and stir like there is no day after tomorrow either. 

When the whole thing becomes thick enough to roll like a ball off the vessel, pour it out. Add some powdered cardamom to the mix just before pouring out. 

Then cut into burfi's when cool. 

I love eating it even before the burfi has cooled down. 

Used to try this with coconut that is frozen and grated already. That does not taste good. You can also add some condensed milk or milk powder to this. It tastes better but also gets spoilt faster. 

My grandma makes it this way. Brings back memories.

Hope this motivates some fresh off the boat grad student who is longing for grandmas cooking to get that coconut and start grating..