Guest Post: Apple Rabri/Rabdi

Not long ago, I got to know Kulsum, who is based in Kuwait and writes a food blog called Journey Kitchen. Her food blog is packed with delicious main Indian dishes to desserts too! It was such a pleasure to know Kulsum and her food. Today she is here to share with us, a very yummy looking dessert that I can already tell that I am going to fall in love with!

I was delighted when Leemei requested an Indian sweet recipe for this guest post, because there is always room for dessert isn’t it? Thank you Leemei for inviting me, it?s a pleasure to be here.

Growing up, the only Indian sweets I ate were homemade. I found my mom’s desserts way better than anything I could buy at the stores. She can make a simple fruit pudding to gulab jamun to burfi’s with such ease and guests often ask for more servings.

My own experience with Indian sweets didn’t start too well. Without any apparent reason I was averse to trying out Indian desserts. May be it was the thought that they are time consuming or just the plain fear of never matching up to my mom. Considering this a real shame – more so because my entire family including uncles and aunts are considered pro’s in the field, mom guided me into making ?rabri? to get me started. It worked like a charm is all I can say. What is rabri you ask? In India traditionally, we don’t have heavy cream, single cream or half and half kind of things with different butter fat ratios. Instead we have one cream called ‘malai’, which simply made by skimming the top layer of fat that forms on milk when it is heated.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t have our share of fattening creamy heaven! Instead Indian desserts rely on slowly heating full fat milk over a long period of time, evaporating the water content and leaving behind heavenly creamy reduction. Rabri is a form of sweetened reduced milk flavored with nuts and spices. The slow heating creates a distinct nutty flavor which is what really makes this dessert so incredible. Hope you shall enjoy it as much as we do.

Recipe: Apple Rabri/Rabdi

Serves: 3-4

Ingredients:

1 liter full fat milk

3 apples * (cored, peeled and shredded)

1/2 can condensed milk 2 cardamom pods, cracked

1 stick cinnamon (2 inch)

1 tsp rose water**

Pistachio or preferred nut for garnishing

Note:

* I used gala apples this time, but any sweet variety works as well. Or even a combination of different types of sweet apples. But you don’t want tart apples here.

** You can also use saffron for flavoring

Method:

1. On a low heat (preferably a non stick) deep bottom saucepan add milk, cardamom pods and cinnamon and cook till it?s reduced to half.

2. Every few minutes, you need to stir the milk so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom. Once reduced to half (takes about an hour), add condensed milk.

3. Increase or decrease as per sweetness preference. Also add in the shredded apples. Cook for another 10 minutes and add the rose water. Let it cool. Garnish with pistachios.

4. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. Serve with thin slices of apple.