cardamom cream bon bons

cardamom pods--> SHF#3:spice up your life winter hosted by zarahmaria--> baby spice aka emma bunton's "crickets for annamaria"--> all the colours of the world! every boy and every girl!--> ginger spice's bodacious bonbons--> cardamom-infused cream fudge coated in chocolate and multicoloured sprinkles.

yes, well, no one said i didn't have dubious tastes. i was making a simplified version of badam barfi, an indian confection normally made with ground almonds, ghee, sugar and cardamom, but i couldn't find the edible silver leaf that it is normally coated in. nor could i find gold leaf. since i made it for the holidays, i had to use something a bit special, but without the leaf, what would be the next best thing? what would baby spice do? probably nothing--maybe get the hell out of the kitchen--but i believe the precious materials pecking order goes something like diamonds, gold, silver, chocolate, and diamonds were out of the question. so instead of the normal lozenge shape that the badam barfi is normally formed into, i made them into small bonbons and dipped them in callebaut dark couverture chocolate. then sprinkled them with hundreds and thousands because i think they are highly underrated and very, very pretty. (and no, not like baby spice who is only slightly underrated and almost pretty).



badam barfi

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
a small fistful of cardamom pods
1/2 cup white sugar
2 cups toasted ground almonds
1/2 tsp salt

place the cream, milk, and crushed cardamom pods into a saucepan. bring to a boil and cook until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. strain out the cardamom pods. bring back to the heat; add sugar and cook until dissolved. while stirring, add the ground almonds and salt. continue to cook and stir until the mixture pulls away from the sides and forms a stiff dough. form dough in a shallow pan and cut into diamonds, or roll into small balls and dip into chocolate.