Passionfruit Kulfi

Alas we have approached the last week of summer in Sydney and boy is it stinking hot!! There’s a heatwave along with bushfires and I’ve had orientation week responsibilities. Oh the fun. Sitting in the stall, all sweaty and stuffy, greeting everyone that walks by trying to entice them to join our  society. All the while eating plenty of junk food, drinking insane amounts of water and not needing to pee, handing out flyers and pamphlets and collecting money off people.

Okay enough about orientation.

I actually love the entire process. I mean it’s become a tradition to spend oweek with all my society people lugging around my now famous suitcase.

Between all the fuss about O-week I decided to have a go at making Kulfi. It took two tries to perfect this recipe where the first try ended in a serious disaster with curdled milk. Yikes!

What is Kulfi?

Kulfi is an insanely delicious un-churned ice cream made from reduced creamy milk and flavours such as saffron, almond, pistachio or rose (traditionally). It’s a popular sweet across the Indian subcontinent and would be stored in a clay pot before serving it up. I have so many fond memories of travelling to India, going to the beach and buying an insanely tasty stick of Kulfi. It’s a bit of a tradition for my family.

Now with passionfruit in season and the hot summer heat, I decided to have a go at this new flavour. I must say it turned out delicious. Honestly I really enjoyed it and so did mum and my sister. The recipe is fairly straightforward, you just have to be patient and really allow the milk to come together.

Here’s the recipe

Have a go at this crazy yum recipe. It’s easy and is so worth it. It’s one of those that will actually really impress your houseguests. If you enjoyed the recipe, do let me know! I am going to start experimenting with more fruit and flavours to develop more kulfi and sweet Indian fusion recipes.

Lime and Coconut and Pancakes

the end result!

Pancakes are just the best thing in the world, and they are truly the best pick me up after a really long or hard day. I tend to save these for the congratulations-on-finishing-exams or time-to-cheer-up kind of days.

This is one of my absolute favourite pancake recipes to make. For those that know anything about me know just how much I truly love coconut. The recipe is 10000% more appealing because it is totally eggless and can very easily be made into a vegan variation for which I will give details below!

What you need?

• 3/4 cup of plain flour
• 1/4 of self raising flour
• 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
• pinch of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of white vinegar (this is the flufffffing agent 😛 )
• 1 lime (we are going to use the rind and juice)
• some milk (I used full cream, but you can use almond, coconut, rice or soy)
• 1 heaped tablespoon of yogurt (I used a naturally sweetened variety. If you are vegan you can use some coconut whip)
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract or essence
• 1/4 teaspoon of coconut essence (this stuff is super strong!)
• less than 1/4 cup of desiccated coconut
• some butter for frying
• toasted coconut shavings **optional** (for garnishing)
• whipped cream (or thickened cream like I used)
• powdered sugar and maple syrup (of course)

What to do?

1. Mix the milk and yogurt in a cup and set aside
2. Sift the flours and add them to a bowl
3. Add the baking powder and soda to the flours
4. Add the vinegar straight over the baking powder and soda and watch them fizz up
5. Add the vanilla and coconut essence to the flours
6. Add the rind of half the lime.
7. Grab a whisk and break up the flours before adding the juice of a bit over half a lime. If you like a really tangy flavour, add more lime juice.
8. Add the desiccated coconut and whisk through well
9. Now whisk through the milk and yogurt mixture, little by little, until you achieve a thick pancake batter. It should be thick enough to hold a trail when spooning it out.
10. Heat some butter in a fry pan and spread it around everywhere, on a low flame. I think its best to start on a low heat.
11. Using a ladle, spoon out one ladle full of the batter and pour it straight into the center of the fry pan and watch the batter spread out.
12. Allow the pancake to fry until you see bubbles form around the sides of the pancake. This may take a few minutes
13. Flip the pancake, and allow the pancake to cook for a few minutes
14. Remove the pancake and then repeat steps 10 to 13. Generate a stack of pancakes for serving.
15. To serve, top the stack with the toasted coconut flakes, maybe some pecans, maybe some more lime rind… I went with some coconut infused whipped cream. To do this pour some thickened cream into a bowl and add a few drops of coconut essence. Grab your whisk and whip away!

These pancakes are super tangy and coconutty and I truly love them. They are a really wonderful summer breakfast treat and great cheat to your healthy week. Better yet, the pancakes are eggless which will prevent you feeling bloated in the mornings. And, the pancakes themselves are sugarfree. I choose to allow the vanilla and the maple syrup topping to do all the sweetening. Thus, the pancake itself can be eaten by diabetics, like my dad, absolutely guilt free. Just add some sugarfree whipped cream and you are good to go.

Let me know what you think of this recipe! I really would love to hear feedback! I apologise in advance for not having photos of all the steps. I am a truly terrible photographer and well.. they all look a little funny 😛