Scrumptious Nutty Milk Fudge from Punjab: Dhoda Burfi

Dhoda is a traditional sweet fudge from Punjab. I dedicate this recipe to my dear dear father, who  used to travel all over India and whenever he went to Bhatinda, Punjab for his business trip, he would bring boxes of this fudge.  I used to love this sweet dish, but it never found quite like the one he used to bring from Punjab.
In India you get all the sweets ready made so you never bothered about making them at home.  Once I moved here and started making sweet dishes, I remembered the taste of Dhoda and decided to make it from memory of my taste.

Thanks to invention of Microwave, it cuts down on slaving over the hot stove and tedious stirring. In Indian cooking we make lot of  things that you have to cook on stove for long time for reduction and they spatter all over the place when hot.
As you may have noticed I used microwave quite a bit for boiling milk for making yogurt, cooking rice, making Khandvi, making walnut fudge and cooking vegetables when I am lazy to cook them over stove or in pressure cooker.

One reader actually made fun of my wording, when I had mentioned in my post "boil" potatoes in microwave.  Which I literally do, I cook them in microwave till they become tender.
Anyways to make long story short, I can not live without a microwave. It is my "Stove Devta" : D
All of you Indians cooks would know what I am talking about !!

Back to my recipe for this delicious sweet dish.
I did some research and in India they make this out of milk and would curdle the milk with alum and cook it on stove till it is reduced to "Khoya".
Similar to making Kalakand and milk cake and then add the the nuts.
Speaking of nuts this sweet is loaded with nuts. From the memory of my childhood when papa used to bring this from Punjab, it was loaded with Cashews, Pistachios and Almonds. So I mainly used these nuts and few walnuts.

I have been wanting to make this sweet for long time, but never got around to it.  We had a function at the local Jain temple here and I had to take a sweet dish for 50 guests.  I decided to try it at home vs buying from store.  Brave !!  right ??  but I thought, what could go wrong with milk, nuts and sugar as main ingredients.
Here are the ingredients I used and it took me an hour to make about 60 pieces of this delicious sweet and needless to say it was a hit, it disappeared from the trays at the serving table very quickly.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of Almonds
• 4 cups of Roasted Cashews  (believe it or not I used salted because that is all I had and it was fine)
• 1 cup of Pistachios
• 1 cup of Walnuts 
• 2 sticks of butter OR 1 cup of clarified butter (ghee) divided in two parts.

• 1/4 cup of cracked wheat (Bulgur or Dalia) (optional*, see Hints)
• 6 cups of whole milk or evaporated milk from cans (divided in to 2 cup and 4 cups). (OR you can use two cups of half and half or heavy cream and four cups of milk mixed together instead.)
• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 cans of condensed milk
• 4 cups of dry milk powder
• 1 teaspoon of cardamom seed ground
• 1 cups of mix pistachios and Cashew sliced/chopped or coarsely ground for garnishing

*Hints:

• I used already roasted cashews, but if you use raw nuts, it may be good idea to lightly roast all the nuts (especially Almonds, pistachios and cashews) in oven or on stove in a shallow pan, and cooling them before grinding them in food processor.
• You can cut the recipe down to if want to make less and or for large parties you can make ahead of time and freeze them. These freeze very well. 
• You can completely omit the Cracked wheat/ Bulgur if you like can make without it. 
• If you do add the cracked wheat,  make sure it is tender cooking in milk before adding sugar. 
• Can soak the Cracked Wheat or Bulgur for few hours  before adding if you have time.

You would need following:

• A food processor.
• A pan (preferably wok or Kadai)
• Large Pyrex microwave safe glass bowl
• Aluminum trays
• Baking paper cups for individual servings.

Method: 

• In a wok or Kadai (Indian wok) melt one stick of butter or heat 1/2 cup of ghee on stove at low heat and add cracked wheat.
• Stir until the cracked wheat turns brown and emits it nice roasted aroma.
• Add 2 cups of milk (or evaporated milk or cream and half and half mix if you choose to use that).
• Cook it on low heat until cracked wheat grains become tender (about 20 min). Stir in between.
• Add sugar and cook it for 10 more min on medium to low heat.

• While the cracked wheat and milk is cooking,  you can chop/grind or crush all the roasted nuts separately in food processor, as the the softness and texture of each nut is different and if you put them together in food processor they may not crush evenly.
• Do not crush/grind them to total powder texture. They should be of somewhat coarse texture as shown in pictures. 

 

 

 

• Now add the ground nuts mix to cooked milk and sugar mix.
• Cook on medium low heat for 1-2 min stirring constantly.
• Add condensed milk, dry milk powder and remaining evaporated or whole milk .

• Take the glass Pyrex bowl, add remaining one stick of butter or remaining 1/2 cup of ghee to it. 
• Pour all the content (nuts and milk mixture) in to the bowl.
• Add remaining 4 cups of milk.
• Mix well.
• Cook in microwave, uncovered on high power for total of 35-40 min in interval of 5 min each.
• Every five min take it out of microwave very carefully and mix the content well with wooden spatula

 

• Cook it until the mix become brown and the butter or ghee start coming out of the mix slightly.
• Add ground cardamom and mix well. 
• Do not over cook, otherwise the mix will become too dry.
• Now pour the content very carefully, while hot on to aluminum trays and press it with back of spatula ( I used back of " Katori" an Indian serving bowl) 

• Generously Sprinkle the garnish of ground/sliced or chopped pistachio and press again firmly with back of spatula.
• Let it set for 10 min, then while still warm, cut in to 2 " square.
• Next day I further cut them in to 1" x 2 " for small bite size servings and places them in individual baking paper cups for individual servings.
• Store them in airtight container.  It will stay good at room temp for 1 week or so, and longer in the fridge.

 Enjoy !!

Recipe and Photographs by Surekha.