Badam Katli or Badam Burfi

I don't remember my mother making this sweet while I was growing up, so I relied on online recipes for this. I tried a few of them, but finally settled with the one below, which is a mush mash of 2-3 recipes I tried. This is the right texture and feel I wanted.

Badam Katli

Ingredients:

(pic above is made with 3 cups of almonds)
1. Almonds - 1 cup
2. Sugar - 1 cup
3. Butter - 2 tbsp
4. Elaichi/Cardamon powder - a pinch
5. Milk - 1/4 to 1/2 cup

Method:
I blanched the almonds first using the method that is specified in chefinyou blog. Please click on the link to see how. Then I dried them completely by wiping them with a clean dry kitchen towel and spreading them out to dry more(for about an hour). Grind this into powder using a blender. Pour in a mixing bowl and mix well with sugar. On a non-stick pan add 2 tbps of butter and once it melts add the mixture of almond powder and sugar. You need keep the temperature at less than medium heat. Keep mixing it by add milk one spoon at a time. This is just to help the sugar melt and to make our dry mixture into a dough like consistency. After around 20 minutes of doing this, the mixture will form a dough like consistency, more like chapathi, and will start to leave the sides of the pan (it will not stick anyway if you use non-stick pan so this is not a deciding factor). At this point add the elaichi powder, mix well and stop the stove. Let it cool for 5-7 minutes, if it cools too much you cannot roll it like a chapathi and cut it. So once it is cool enough for you to handle, roll it using rolling pin and board greased with butter. Cut them into diamonds, pizza cutter made it easy. You can add the shapeless ones along the edges back into the mixture and knead it again. Repeat until you are all done.

Notes:
I made this with 3 cups of almonds and 3 cups of sugar. But my friend who tried it with one cup said she couldn't get her blender (Indian) to grind, so she had to add milk and make it a paste instead. I didn't want to add milk because that brings a different texture. When it is in paste form, the sugar melts soon on heat making it of sticky sugar syrup consistency. You cannot roll this mixture using rolling pin when done, instead you have to pour this in a plate while hot and cut them into pieces. There is a plus to this, the katlis are bind well and don't break. The one I did are kind of crumbly, they will break easily. Its just personal preference, they both are yummy :-) Also when you make 3 cups like I did, you should be fast to roll them because the mixture starts to cool fast and it hardens as it cools.