What is Basundi?

An easy sweet recipe prepared with milk, flavored with nutmeg and cardamom and enriched with dry fruits is basundi. This Indian recipe belongs to Gujarat and Maharashtra. There is something common in the most popular sweet recipes of India; rasgulla, gulab jamun, kaju katli, kalakand, peda etc; these are milk-based sweet recipes. Evaporated milk or mawa is used in most of the sweet recipes. And I love milk-based dessert recipes. Mainly because whenever I have leftover milk I quickly make some kalakand or peda or kheer with it. Secondly, most of these sweet recipes can be made quick sweet recipes with the use of condensed milk.

Let’s talk about the ingredients for Basundi recipe

We can’t talk much about it, because there aren’t many ingredients used for Basundi recipe. The second best thing is that the ingredients used are very simple and easily available. This is a quick sweet recipe because condensed milk has also been used. Ingredients such as condensed milk, milk powder, evaporated milk often reduce the cooking time of the dessert. Following is all that you need to make basundi:

Milk and condensed milk: It is advised to use whole cream milk for the milk-based desserts. However, I often make sweets such as peda, kalakand, etc with the leftover milk. And that is not full cream milk. Still, I am happy with the results. So I believe if you can use full cream milk. Otherwise, you can also work with whatever you have, just cook it properly. Further, the recipe calls for condensed milk which not only reduces its cooking time but also gives it a nice texture.

Dry Fruits: Dry fruits give the body to basundi. I have used almonds, pistachios and cashew nuts. You can add or omit as per your choice.

Flavoring: The most common ones, cardamom, and saffron have been used. Other than these, nutmeg has been used which is indispensable for this recipe.

Similar Recipes on the blog

Kheer recipes are my favorite milk-based sweet recipes. Recently I made kesar phirni and this is now our favorite dessert, we often indulge in some chilled and creamy phirni.

How to serve Basundi?

Just as kheer, basundi can be served hot, warm or chilled. I prepared it for Janamashtami fast and served it with kuttu chilla and aloo ki farali sabji.