No-Churn Mango Kulfi

Good news! There's no ice cream machine required to follow the recipes in our new energy-efficient frozen dessert series (just a little nook in your freezer). That's one less thing to buy (ice cream machine) and less energy to burn (churning).[/i]

Traditional Indian kulfi recipes always require fresh mangoes but my rather nontraditional Indian mother was born in British East Africa (the part that's Uganda now), grew up in Kenya, and went to England for university. The very first time she went to India (and ate kulfi made with Indian mangoes) she was in her late twenties on her honeymoon. As a result, her kulfi recipe is cultural sacrilege in 4 easy steps: she uses tinned mango pulp for the mango component. In fact, she only uses three ingredients, two of which come from cans.

Kulfi carts on the street in India provide a completely different experience, partly because eating street food in India is influenced so much by the noise, the smells, the melting rate of whatever you're eating, and partly because they use a completely different set of ingredients. To anyone who might challenge this recipe for being too modern or easy I'd say it's dangerous to conflate things like preparation time, ethnicity of the cook, or place of consumption, with authenticity (if only because it suggests that any variations on the original will be a lesser version). Plus, using tinned mango pulp means you can eat mango kulfi even when you can't find mangoes.

If fresh mangoes are in season for you, go to your local Pakistani or Indian grocer and buy the case with the strongest perfume and fewest bruises and substitute 6 to 8 ripe mangoes, skin and pit removed, pureed in a blender or finely chopped and mashed by hand. If they're not in season yet, get a can of Alphonso mango puree and rest assured that my family has been making kulfi from cans for three generations.

Mango kulfi

1 cup heavy cream

1 12 ounce can Alphonso mango puree

1 8 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1.Whip the cream just until soft peaks form. Stop whipping.

2.In a separate bowl, combine the sweetened condensed milk and mango puree until smooth.

3.Fold the mango-milk mixture into the cream until your kulfi is a uniform orange creamsicle color.

4.That's it. Pour into a container and freeze for about 4 or 5 hours.

Note: If you're not eating it the same day you froze it, you may want to soften the kulfi in the fridge for a few minutes before serving.

For more Indian recipes check out Planet Green's Indian Food archive.