Hubby is a big fan of coconut, after all he is from Kerala, the land of God ! He loves coconut barfi, said it is the best that he likes, while I was taking trouble making new desserts for him ! So, today, made the traditional coconut barfi, but in my own way.
INGREDIENTS
coconut 1 freshly grated
milk about 2 cups
sugar roughly 1 1/2 cups
note- all these measurements depends also on how big was your coconut, as at times, a coconut may look big, have more water and less fruit in. Luckily the one that I used came roughly 1 big bowl full ! So, accordingly use the measurements.
Nuts chopped 2 tbsp
ghee 1 tbsp
METHOD
in a wide non-stick pan, I added the coconut and milk, mixed well, kept in low flame
I kept stirring every few minutes, till the milk was also absorbed by the coconut
then I added 3 tiny cups of sugar( which should make 1 1/2 cups) mixed well, went to do my reading, stirring every now and then. I added chopped nuts before the mixture became thick.
Once I saw that the sugar was also well absorbed and it was getting thick, I added about 1 tsp of ghee, mixed well, continued stirring for about 2 minutes
I had greased a plate with ghee, spread the mixture leveled it, then allowed it to set for an hour, till we came back from lunch.
As hubby wants dessert ( though he is a diabetic !), I gave him his favourite barfi, he said it was very good ! but he wanted it to harden. I put the lines on the barfi, as once it is too hard, it will be difficult to cut and left it for almost another 2 hours. It was quite hard. I packed it in a box for hubby to relish. The problem for me is, people can sniff when I make anything and people in our senior gated community being old, all love sweets. They all know that I'm non-traditional and make my desserts normally using very healthy stuffs, like ragi and other millet powders, jaggery, oats pdr and so on. Most people have told me including our VP when I offered him carrot barfi, any time I make sweets, I've to give him his share !