Burfi or fudge is a most popular home made sweet enjoyed at any Indian household. There are many varieties of burfis you can make by adding or eliminating the flavors and ingredients. But this Peanut Til Makhana burfi is one of my favorites.
The best part of this burfi version is that it’s made with few basic ingredients that are easily available in most household kitchens or can be easily found in local grocery store. Enjoy the pleasure of making and sharing your own homemade sweets with pride.
WHAT Makes Peanut Sesame Makhana BURFI or FUDGE so Special?
Nature has its own way of keeping the body warm and there are certain foods that can further strengthen natural body heat when consumed in the winter. Jaggery, peanut and sesame seeds are all winter foods that elders emphasize due to this.
Peanuts, Sesame seeds, Fox Nuts and Jaggery are an important part of Indian cuisine since centuries. These are most widely used ingredients as Ayurvedic medicines and are especially consumed in winters for their warming nature.
Peanut, Sesame seeds (til) and jaggery (gud) provide heat and energy to the body that helps beat the cold in winters. Fox nuts help to keep the blood sugar low because of its low GI value. All these ingredients are good source of protein.
Other popular winter foods made with above ingredients include til gud laddu, til gazak, til rewari, peanut chikki, and peanut gud burfi.
Important Tips for Making Peanut Til Makhana Burfi
The word Burfi or Barfi originated from Persian word ‘Barf’ or ‘Burf’, which means a slab of ice. Burfi, looks like a ice cube in shape. The whole process of making Burfi can be divided into three parts:
- Making Sugar Sysrup
- Khoya or Mawa
- Flavors
I have prvided a lot of details on each of these steps in Baked ShakarPara; Mixed Nut Coconut Burfi and Pistachio Gulkand Burfi. Below are some tips associated with these steps that are relevant for this recipe.
Making Sugar Syrup for Peanut Seasame Fox Nut Fudge
Making sugar syrup is the most crucial part in any burfi recipe. If sugar syrup is thinner than the required consistency, the burfi would not set and would become more like halwa consistency. At the same time if it gets thicker, then burfi would become like a hard candy crisp chikki or brittle instead of burfi, which should have melt in mouth texture not crisp. Please see the Baked ShakarPara recipe for detailed step-by-step instructions.
Different sweets require different temperatures depending on their texture. For this peanut til makhana burfi recipe, we need single string consistency sugar syrup, which is 215°F – 234°F / 101°C – 112°C. We need the higher end of temperature of thread consistency not the lower range. Wait until the syrup temperature reach around 230oF – 234oF.
If you do not hae a candy thermometer, to check the consistency of syrup dip a wooden spatula in the syrup and lift out. Allow cooling for a few seconds as it will be very hot to touch at first. Now touch the syrup with a clean forefinger and then touch your thumb and forefinger together and pull apart gently. The syrup will form a continuous thread and does not break when your forefinger and your thumb are pulled apart gently. This stage is called single thread consistency.
Khoya or Mawa
Khoya or mawa is an essential part of making burfi. But what exactly Khoya is? In short ‘khoya’ is a milk solids. Khoya or mawa is prepared by evaporating milk and reducing it to its solid form. To make Khoya you keep boilling milk till it comes to a dough type consistency. Making khoya at home is a time-consuming process.
In this recipe, I have used a store-bought khoya which would expedite the cooking process. But if you have access to homemade mawa or willing to make khoya at home, you should be good using any options.
Flavors – Please your Taste buds
With added ingredients and flavors we can create many versions of burfis. Some most popular flavors of burfis are kesar burfi, mango burfi, cashew burfi, pistachio burfi, Peanut Burfi, Til burfi, Mixed Nut Coconut Burfi and gulkand burfi, etc. In this variation I have combined three ingredients to bring out a unique addition to a winter special popular burfi flavors.
How to store delicious Peanut Sesame Fox Nut Fudge
Since the khoya has been used in this recipe, we cannot keep it at room temperature for more than a day or two. So it is best to store it in air-tight container and keep it in fridge. This will be good for up to 10 days. For longer storage duration consider deep freezing the burfi. When you are ready to consume, transfer it to fridge one day before.
Ingredients for Peanut Til Makhana Burfi
From Pantry:
- Peanuts – Raw 1 cup or 175 grams
- Makhana or Fox nuts – Raw 3 cups or 50 grams
- White Sesame seeds or Til – Raw ½ cup or 75 grams
- Jaggery or Sugar – 1 and ¾ cup or 350 grams (where one cup is equivalent to 200 grams of sugar)
Tip: In this recipe the quantity of sugar is equivalent to 1.5 times of total weight of Peanut+Makhana+Til+Khoya. Which can be adjusted to individual’s taste.
Dairy Product:
- Mawa or Khoya or Milk Solids – 1 cup or 225 grams grated
Spices:
- Cardamom – 1 tbs powdered
How to make Peanut Makhana Sesame Burfi?
- To begin making the Peanut Makhana Sesame Burfi, firstly dry roast peanuts on medium-low heat till crunchy and there’s no raw smell. Stir continuously so that the peanuts get roasted uniformly.
- Once roasted, transfer the peanuts to a flat plate and let them cool down a bit. Once easy to handle, remove the skin by simply rubbing the peanuts between your palms. Skin would come off easily.
- While peanuts are getting cool down roast the makhanas and sesame seeds as well in the same pan on medium to low heat until you start getting nice roasted aroma. Don’t try to make them too brown just roast them until they start getting few brown spots and keep them aside too to cool down.
- Once all the three ingredients are cooled down and husks are removed from the peanuts, they are ready to grind.
- Grind all three ingredients one by one to a coarse powder texture using a food processor’s pulse mode.
- Grate the mawa or khoya as well and keep it aside.
