Faloodaa!!

Falooda is an Indian version of Ice cream with milk shake. Simply put its rich Indian milk shake  served with different flavors of ice cream and topped with lots of nuts.. and all this amazingness set on a bed of vermicelli (semiya) and chia seeds (sabja). Its soo decadent and not to mention extremely delicious!! I remember visiting chaat corners at my hometown and  me and my friends had this set agenda of eating all the tasty chaats (Indian snacks) first and then ending with this wonderful dessert without fail! Aaah! If only those glorious days could be brought back.. Anyways.. if not the days, we can definitely refresh those memories by making and enjoying a Falooda.

Ingredients:

Condensed Milk - 1 Can

Whole or skimmed milk - 1 to 1 - 1/2 cup

Roasted Nuts  (Almonds,Cashews), roughly chopped - 1/4 cup

Chia seeds soaked in water for 1/2 an hour - 2-3 tb sp

Vermicelli, boiled - 1/4 cup 

Ice cream (any flavor of your choice, preferably vanilla) - 4 scoops

Dried cherries - 2tb sp

Rose syrup - 2 tb sp

Rose water - 1/4 cup

Method:

- Pour all the condensed milk in a mixing bowl.

- Add the milk, rose water and stir well, till the mixture is thinner and smoother. You might need more regular milk to reach a desired consistency. Refrigerate this at least for an hour so that its nice and chilled.

- Now take 4 serving glasses and take the rose syrup with a spoon. Holding the glass in your hand, just swirl some of it along the inside, while turning the glass round. This will make the whole thing look pretty.

- Next, put 1/4th of the vermicelli, chia seeds and place it each of the glass.

- Now pour 1/4 of the milk mixture in each glass and then top it with an ice cream scoop.

- Finally garnish with chopped nuts, cherries and little more rose syrup if you like it.

- Serve chilled.

Tips:

- You can prepare this in advance and store it in the fridge.

- You can use any ice cream flavor you like and even mix and match!

- If you like cardamom, add it in powdered form to the milk mixture. Not only this, you can flavor the milk with say mango pulp, use mango ice cream scoop and make this a Mango Bonanza Falooda! :)

- If you do not want to use condensed milk, you can make your own. Just take 1 litre of whole fat milk and reduce it to half. Add 1/2 cup of sugar or more according to your liking and use this for the Falooda.

- Also, do not limit yourself to just the nuts I mentioned above. I sometimes go crazy and make this all about a rich Nutty Affair :P I will add chopped dried figs, walnuts, raisins, pistachios, dried cranberries etc. Its amazing!!

- You can skip the vermicelli and chia seeds if you don't like it.

Healthy Twist:

- Use unsweetened evaporated milk instead of condensed milk. Then add little sugar as per your liking. This will significantly reduce the calorie count and is much healthier.

- Go for healthier options for nuts like: Walnuts, Macadamia nuts etc.

- Use low fat, low sugar ice cream or even a sorbet!

- Chia seeds are really healthy, so dont skip it!