I’ve a chronic sweet tooth yet it wasn’t until recently that I’d tried Indian sweets. We were gifted a box of burfi and immediately associated their opaque, brightly coloured appearance to fancy, handmade bar soaps. That aside, burfi are a ‘dense [condensed] milk and [sugar] based sweet from the Indian subcontinent and a type of mithai‘, with the word derived from the Persian word barf, which means snow.

This is a Mango Burfi with its opaque, intense yellow colour and mellow mango aroma. The mango came through on tasting, but so too does a prominent dairy flavour and together, give a slightly chemical flavour. Taste aside, we found the mouthfeel of the burfi the most challenging — it is dense but also crumbly with a cloying sweetness and stodgy mouthfeel that dissolves with a grainy finish.

This is the Rose Coconut Burfi with its two layered opaque white coconut layer topped by the opaque pink rose layer. This one has a faint rosewater aroma that came through on tasting along with coconut. The rose, along with the dairy undertones and stodgy texture and opaque appearance, recall rose scented bar soap.

This is the Peanut Burfi with its off opaque off-white base speckled through with crushed peanuts. This one smells nutty, with the nuttiness coming through over the condensed milk on tasting to make this one our favourite. The crunch of the crushed peanuts mean we don’t mind the stodgy texture of the base as much.

This is the Pista Coconut Burfi with its two layered opaque white coconut layer topped by the opaque green pistachio layer. This smells sweet without any hint of nuttiness, and on tasting, the more subtle sweet notes of pistachio are overwhelmed by the prominence of the condensed milk.

This is the Chocolate Burfi with its two layered opaque white coconut layer topped by the opaque brown chocolate layer. There’s a faint hint of chocolate aroma, that came through just enough on tasting to came through against the condensed milk. The coconut adds some bite to the sweet to break up the heavy texture, although we’d have preferred a bolder chocolate flavour.

Finally, this is the Cassata Burfi with its triple layered opaque pink, yellow and green layers to draw on a similarly striped fruity sweet from Sicily, Italy. This one has fruity hints against the dairy background overall but the layers do not lend distinct flavours.

We’re glad to be given the opportunity to enjoy Indian sweets, but we’re afraid the texture of these burfi is too much of a challenge for us.

Pure Desi is located at 1/6 McCormack St, Arndell Park NSW 2148.