Chocolate barfi (or sometimes spelled burfi) was a favourite of mine when I was a child and is now a favourite of my children.  This is the first time I made these barfis, so I was a bit apprehensive of how they would turn out as the recipe as taught to me by my father in law is really simple.  How can something cooked so quickly and simply taste so great? But believe me they tasted better than any barfis I have ever eaten.   I changed the original recipe given to me and reduced the sugar as the chocolate layer tends to be very sweet.

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Ingredients for about 25-30 slices

• 4 cups of full cream milk powder
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon cardamom powder
• 2-3 pinches of saffron
• 1 tablespoon ghee (clarified butter)
• ½ cup of milk
• 300 grams cooking chocolate (you can use any milk chocolate -gI used 2 bars of Green & Black’s Cooks Organic Milk chocolate)

If you want to give these chocolate barfis  as a gift to more friends, you can use beautiful packaging to show your love.   You can buy the chocolate wrapping foil with a pattern or you can go a step further and decorate a simple home wrapper with  customized stickers from BPS.com where the stickers can be personalized,  so be  creative and design your own labels and patterns  for your friends and make your gift of  these chocolate barfis look sensational.

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Chocolate barfi (or burfi)

A classic Indian celebration sweet, chocolate burfi is a delicious crowd-pleaser. This recipe is adapted from one taught to me by my father-in-law who made these in his Indian mithai shop in Tanzania.

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: barfi, burfi, mishti, mithai

Servings: 20 slices

Author: Mina Joshi

Ingredients

• 4 cups of full cream milk powder
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon cardamom powder
• 2-3 pinches of saffron
• 1 tablespoon ghee clarified butter
• ½ cup of milk
• 300 grams cooking chocolate I used 2 bars of Green & Black’s Cooks Organic Milk chocolate

Instructions

• Add three quarter cup of water to the sugar and slowly bring to boil until the sugar has melted. This should take under 10 minutes on a high heat.
• Meanwhile, soak the saffron in a tablespoon of milk for 5-6 minutes. This step gives the barfi both its key flavour and colour.
• Once the sugar and water mixture starts to feel sticky, add the milk powder to the sugar mixture. Stir and add in the milk and ghee. Don’t allow the sugar mixture to become stringy or stiff or the recipe won't work!
• Mix well and remove from heat. Add the saffron-infused milk and cardomom powder, then mix again to distribute. This is your barfi mixture.
• Grease a oven-proof dish with some oil. Turn out the barfi mixture onto the dish. Spread the mixture evenly across the dish using the back of a spoon.
• Allow this mixture to cool until it solidifies (I often leave it overnight).
• After the barfi has fully cooled, you can top it with chocolate as described below. Don't try to layer the chocolate on top until it has cooled completely.
• To prepare the chocolate layer, you need to melt the cooking chocolate. You can do this in the microwave, but I prefer doing it over the stove as it's easier to monitor. Cut the chocolate into small pieces and put it in a heatproof bowl and place it in a shallow pan filled with hot water. Keep stirring the chocolate to avoid it scorching.
• To melt chocolate over the stove, cut the chocolate into small pieces (1/2 cm) and place them into a heatproof bowl.
• Fill a shallow pan with hot (just boiled) water and put the heatproof bowl of chocolate pieces into it. Keep stirring the chocolate pieces as they start to melt to distribute the heat evenly.
• Once your cooking chocolate has melted completely, pour it over the cold barfi and spread it evenly. It then needs to cool, for around 6-8 hours depending on your room temperature or quicker in the fridge.
• Once completely cool, cut the chocolate barfi into bite size squares and store on an airtight container.

Notes

Barfi can be stored for a week in a cool place.

Recipe for Almond barfi is here