Mango Kulfi

I am a big ice cream fan. My mother used to make the most delicious ice cream at home that we’d dig into very religiously after dinner. Someday I’ll blog about that. Even now, we almost always have ice cream in the freezer, but I barely eat it. I feel very bad when I sometimes have to throw some of it away to make space for other more precious stuff. But Gurgaon has these ice cream cycles of all companies just about everywhere. So, when I feel the urge, all I have to do is step outside our apartment complex and choose from Mother Dairy, Kwality Walls, Vadilal and Cream Bell. With all this choice, I end up eating the same Orange Ice Candy.

When I was little, we didn’t have as much choice. Some trips to the Adyar Bakery House on Sardar Patel Road would result in a treat with Joy Ice Creams. Dinners at Woodlands Hotel on Edward Elliots Road would always end with a slab of vanilla, chocolate or strawberry ice cream. The occasional buffets that we were treated to at the Taj Coromandel or Connemara would mean that we’d stand almost perennially in front of the ice cream counter.


Then there’s the Indian ice cream that I was introduced to soon after my eldest cousin’s wedding: Kulfi. She’d been married almost 25 years when S and I tied the knot. When we visited “her” house at Antop Hill, the summer after her wedding, we ended our dinner by calling the kulfiwala. I was hooked from the first bite. And then I’d started demanding it almost every night for the month that we stayed in Bombay. Year after year. Until Amma started making the stuff at home.


There was a time when Nestle’s Milkmaid was much sought after. I remember a time when they either gave away free recipe booklets or kulfi moulds. We still have two of their signature blue plastic kulfi moulds and a much used worn out recipe booklet. My dear friend A gifted me the Milkmaid Gold Collection of desserts a few years ago and I have since forgotten about the booklet. I am sure it is still among my parents’ books. This booklet taught Amma how to make the kulfi that filled our freezer almost all year long.

I wanted to make kulfi and didn’t have any moulds. I don’t like eating kulfi in Delhi/Gurgaon because they add kewra to it. I can’t stand the taste of it. Some places add a wee bit of rose essence. Some add both. I figured the easiest way to eat the kind of kulfi I wanted was to make it at home. So, I bought moulds in Madras. (I am like that only!) I also froze several packets of milk before I left for Madras just so I could make kulfi when I got back. That’s called planning.

Banganapalli mangoes have retreated from the markets and we now have Dusehri and Langda. I’d brought back some Banganapalli from Madras and after eating those I didn’t really enjoy these other varieties. But I bought them and had to do something with them. So I decided to make Mango Kulfi. It is so much simpler than I thought and we took some over to dinner at a friend’s place that night. It was all gone in minutes. My first attempt at kulfi making was a great success and I’m so thrilled with the results. I’m sending this over to Meeta for her Monthly Mingle.


1 litre Milk
1 tbsp Flour
1 ½ cups Mango Pulp
1 tin Sweetened Condensed Milk (I used Milkmaid)


Heat the milk, condensed milk and flour together and bring to a boil. Do this over a low flame and stir continuously as the condensed milk has a tendency to stick to the bottom of the vessel and get burnt. Cool completely. Mix the mango pulp into the milk mixture. Fill the kulfi moulds with this mixture and freeze until set. When set, dip the moulds in warm water, unscrew and hold over a plate. The kulfi slides out effortlessly.


I ensure that I place the moulds directly on the freezer floor and not on top of something else. (Amma did this before we had a frost free kitchen. I’m not even sure this is necessary anymore, but I still do it.)


I plan to try this out with other fruit pulp and I promise to share my results with all of you!