Besan Barfi: Spiced & Nutty Chickpea Fudge

Grease an oblong tray 7”x10” and line with greaseproof paper. Set aside.

Place the gram flour and cardamom powder in a large cooking pan. Cook it at medium-high heat as you keep stirring every now and again to prevent the flour from burning. It takes me about 20 minutes for the gram flour to be nicely roasted with a light golden colour.

Then turn the heat off and add in the melted butter. Mix well.

Add the milk powder to the besan mixture and stir until all is blended.

Stir in the chopped nut in the mixture.

Make the sugar syrup by heating the sugar and water in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Once it boils, let it cook for another 3-4 minutes or until the syrup becomes one-thread consistency. It takes me about 6-7 minutes to make the syrup at low heat.

To check this, spoon a little syrup with a wooden spoon and carefully touch the syrup from the spoon with your index finger. Then touch the index finger with your thumb. When you pull the fingers apart there should be a single thread formed. If you want to be precise, you can use a food thermometer when you start boiling the syrup. The one-thread temperature is usually just above 100º C/ 212º F but below 110ºC/ 230ºF.

Pour the syrup into the besan barfi mixture and quickly stir and mix well. Here, we have to work quickly otherwise the besan won’t be evenly sweet.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, spread and press gently using a spatula or the back of a spoon. Sprinkle and scatter the chopped nuts on top of the barfi. Again, press lightly so the nuts stick nicely.

Leave it to rest for about 10 minutes before you cut the barfi. But don’t leave it too long or it’ll be harder to cut as the barfi becomes firmer.