Zarina's Rose Burfi

MAKES 24-26 PIECES

Burfi is a delicious Indian sweet, essentially a milky, almost fudge-like, dessert that's served at special occasions. This is my mum's burfi ― it brings back so many wonderful memories whenever I make it ― which can be flavoured and coloured to your liking. I've used rose water and food colouring to flavour and colour it respectively, however you can leave those out and just decorate with rose petals and pistachios if you prefer. 

Rose burfi Photo: supplied

Ingredients 

• 500g whole-milk powder
• 2 tablespoons ghee or very soft butter
• 200ml reduced cream
• 250g sugar
• drop of pink food colouring
• 1 teaspoon rose water
• Persian tea roses/edible dried rose petals to garnish
• chopped pistachios (optional)

Method

In a large bowl, combine the milk powder with the ghee and reduced cream and rub it together until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
In a large saucepan, place 1/2 cup of water along with the sugar, food colouring and rose water and heat for approximately 8-10 minutes until the sugar is completely dissolved and the consistency is runny but syrupy. 
Remove from the heat and add the milk powder mixture to the pan. Using a wooden spoon, stir until the mixture comes together and is well combined.
Spread the mixture onto a lined 24 x 18cm baking tray. Decorate with Persian tea roses and pistachios if desired, then leave to set for 2-3 hours (refrigerate if the weather is hot and humid).
When set, cut into desired shapes. Keep leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to one week.