Soft burfi-style squares of ghee-roasted ragi and ground almonds set with jaggery, dense and slightly grainy, scented with cardamom.

Ingredients

From the TrooFoodz pantry

• Sprouted Ragi Flour 1 cup

Fresh

• Almonds, blanched and ground 1 cup
• Milk powder ½ cup
• Ghee 6 tbsp
• Jaggery powder 180 g
• Milk 4 tbsp
• Cardamom powder ¾ tsp
• Pistachios, slivered 2 tbsp
• Salt a pinch

Method

1. Line the tray first

   Grease and line a small tray and set it beside the stove. Fudge sets as it cools and gives you no time to go looking for tins.

2. Roast the ragi

   Stir Sprouted Ragi Flour into four tablespoons of hot ghee and roast on low for eight minutes, until it loosens, darkens and stops smelling raw.

3. Add the almonds

   Stir the ground almonds and milk powder through for a minute more, just until fragrant. Any longer and the almond oil turns bitter.

4. Melt the jaggery

   In a second pan, melt the jaggery powder with the milk into a thick, pourable liquid. No syrup stage here — a cooked syrup would set the fudge hard and brittle.

5. Bring it together

   Pour the jaggery into the flour and stir over low heat with the salt and cardamom until the mass leaves the pan in one lump and holds the line a spoon drags through it.

6. Press while hot

   Tip into the tray and flatten with a greased sheet of parchment, pressing firmly to remove air pockets. Scatter the pistachios and press them in.

7. Cut at blood heat

   Score into squares while the slab is still just warm, and separate them only once fully cool. Cold fudge cracks along the knife instead of cutting.

Why this works

Unlike ladoo or chikki this fudge never takes the jaggery to a syrup stage — the set comes from milk solids and roasted flour binding with fat, which gives a soft, sliceable crumb rather than a brittle one. The dragged-spoon line is the cue: it means enough moisture has driven off for the slab to hold its shape without becoming dry.

Make it your own

• Milk powder → Crumbled khoya Richer and more traditional; reduce the milk by half.
• Almonds → Cashews Softer, sweeter, paler fudge.
• Jaggery powder → Palm jaggery Deeper and smokier; melt it and strain before use.