Food Focus: Indian Barfi
FEATURED
‘One of the things I love most about travelling throughout the world is having the ability to try out food from a variety of different cultures. It’s crazy how many amazing dishes, pastries and sweets I’ve tried from various continents and countries over the past 20 years…’
I have some firm favourites from my time on the road that I haven’t always been able to source once I’ve arrived back in North Wales.
However, with the increasingly multicultural nature of the UK (and the world in general), this is fast becoming less of an issue for me and everyone else. I can often find ingredients that I wouldn’t have found a few years ago in speciality stores, or even in my local supermarket on occasion. My go-to place for researching and ordering, though, is usually online. I honestly don’t know what we did before the internet.
When I was travelling in India a few years ago, I ate my body weight (several times over, I believe…) in barfi Indian sweets and I had real trouble finding them when I got back home to the UK. These days, however, I can get my hands on them without any problems. And not only can I get my hands on the traditional flavours, but I’ve also managed to find a dozen new combinations to fall in love with.
Barfi can be an incredibly rich and sweet snack, which can sometimes be a touch sickly after a few, but the family behind Blisss Barfi have switched up the traditional recipe. To combat some of the sweetness they’ve split the usual milk base and combined it with oats to lessen the sweetness of the barfi to provide the perfect combination. Now, you can literally eat them until you burst. I’m unsure whether this is a good thing but it feels like it is.
The business started in 2016 and has developed SO many flavours that you’ll sit on your laptop and switch them in and out of your cart because you can’t seem to choose between them all. It’s a difficult task, trust me; I’ve tried it. The presentation and attention to detail in the little round handmade treats almost makes them too pretty to eat (almost…)
The company behind the traditional and modern barfi is based in the UK and caters for large events, weddings and corporate functions. But you needn’t be hosting a huge event in order to get in on the barfi action. Blisss Barfi also does bespoke boxes for baby showers, Lohri, Diwali, Christmas, New Year and well, Weddings, anything else you want to celebrate. They’ve also been known to have pop up shops (OMG) where you can try them out before buying.
Products can be easily ordered online in different sized luxury gift boxes with a huge range of flavours and combinations to try. I don’t mean to be overly dramatic here, but if you haven’t tried a strawberry cheesecake or mango and passion fruit barfi then you’re definitely not living your best life.