Papaya Burfi (Ripe Papaya Fudge): A Perfect Fasting Recipe

papaya burfi for fasting recipe

Navratris are around the corner. It is that time of the year when Indians across the globe are busy cleaning their homes and souls by fasting for nine days.

Navratris kick-start the festive season in India.
Those who fast during nine days mostly rely on fruits.

However, today, some of us do try out falahari or fruit-laden recipes for navratri fasting.

Here, I have come up with one navratri sweet for you all. It is delectable and healthy.

Papaya is one of my favorite fruits. My dad has always made sure that his kids have a good amount of fruits everyday. I can credit him for inculcating this habit in us all - my siblings. We all love fruits, with papaya being one of them. Hubby dear is not too fond of papaya. When we bring this humble fruit home, he will have a slice, while I will have my fair share all the time.

In my hubby's side, they enjoy raw papaya as a vegetable, but people hardly savor ripe one. Nevertheless I am on a mission to introduce this antioxidant rich fruit into our diets (though it's already a part of my diet).

So today, I decided to experiment with this vitamin K rich fruit. I searched online to find if we can make papaya as a sweet - probably papaya burfi or ladoo. Voila!

I was happy that people have experimented with this fruit. Now was my turn to do so.

This surely makes a navratri special recipe. Skip cornflakes and add more coconut instead to enjoy this sweet on navratri days.

fasting recipe: papaya fudge

papaya burfi for fast

Let's see what I have come up with:

Ingredients
1/2 cup- mashed papaya
1/2 cup-fresh coconut (you may use dessicated as well)
5-6 almonds and nuts of your choice
1/2 tsp- ghee (clarified butter)
Pistachio- 5-6 (optional)
1/4 cup - Powdered almonds (optional)
1 tbsp -Sugar (or more depending on your taste)
3 tbsp- condensed milk (I used homemade - here's the recipe if you want - (home made - take milk in a heavy bottomed pan and add 2 tbsp of cream or malai on a low flame. keep stirring until milk is reduced to half)) or you may add 2 tbsp dry milk powder

Procedure

ripe papaya fudge burfi

1. Mash ripe papaya with hands or in a processor. Or you may grate papaya (kadukas). Keep aside.
2. Chop almonds and keep aside.
3. Take a nonstick pan.
4. Add ghee.
5. Now drop chopped almonds. 
6. Next add coconut. Fry it for 2-3 minutes.
7. Now mix papaya paste. Keep stirring until papaya starts leaving sides of the pan.
8. Add sugar and condensed milk. Stir well so that the papaya becomes a mass and gathers in the center of the pan.
9. When the mixture has dried and formed a mass, add powdered almonds. Stir and mix very well. The addition og almonds is optional. In the original recipe, I had included cornflakes, but for navratri recipe, we cannot add cornflakes. 
10. The health friendly papaya burfi is almost done.
11. Grease a plate or aluminum foil or take a butter paper.
12. Take out the mixture on the plate.
13. Press it with a spoon/spatula. Garnish with chopped pistachio.
14. Keep it pressed under a heavy utensil for an hour.
15. The papaya burfi may release some oil when pressed, but that's okay. 
16. Cut into pieces and enjoy then and there only. Or you may want to refrigerate the same for an hour or two.
17. Enjoy this health friendly treat and nobody will ever realize you have added papaya to it.
18. The coconut flavor is overpowering in this melt-in-mouth papaya fudge.
19. Did I tell hubby liked this healthy treat and was surprised at what I have come up with!

feedback from Geeta Sachdev on papaya burfi :