Editor's note: These instructions for how to make barfi are excerpted from Julie Sahni's book Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking. Sahni also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page.
This fudge is made with cashew nuts that have been soaked in water. The nuts are drained, ground to a paste, and cooked with sugar until the mixture reaches a fudge consistency. This technique, popular with Marharashtrians in southwestern India, produces a soft, chewy fudge with a grainy texture.
Note: Almonds, pistachios, or walnuts may be substituted for the cashews.
Barfi is a popular candy in India. It's often decorated with edible silver leaf (called vark or varq), real silver that's been hammered into sheets so tissue-thin that they are harmless to ingest. Sold sandwiched between two pieces of paper due to its extreme fragility, silver leaf is available at cake-decorating and Indian grocery stores. To apply it, peel off one piece of paper and position the vark over the food, metal-side down. Gently press the vark onto the food, then peel off the other piece of paper.
