Shahi Tukra/ Royal Bread Pudding

This dessert is definitely worthy of the Shahi or Royal qualifier. I made it for the very first time and it was a great hit with my family and friends. The recipe is simple with readily available ingredients, but you must factor in lengthy cooking time. It can be made in advance and assembled just before you are ready to serve. A rich dish, garnished with ghee, dry fruits and nuts.

Ingredients
2-3 tbsp ghee/clarified butter
4-6 slices of white breads with the crusts cut off
500 ml milk - must be whole milk, do not substitute with low fat milk
1/8 cup water
1/8 tsp cardamom powder
1 pinch saffron/kesar
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp almond slices (can cut whole almond into small pieces as well)
handful of roasted cashews

Method
Make a simple syrup using 1/4 cup sugar and the water and keep aside to cool. Heat milk in a vessel, add sugar and cardamom powder and let it simmer till the volume of milk reduces to half and the milk thickens. To this thickened milk mixture, add the saffron, almonds and cashews. Boil for another few minutes till the saffron is incorporated in the milk. Cut the bread slices into triangular pieces and shallow fry in ghee till the bread turns light brown.

To assemble
The bread and milk must be well cooled in the refrigerator before serving it. Assembly of the dessert must be done just before you are ready to serve it else the bread will turn soggy and pasty. Coat the ghee roasted bread slices with the sugar syrup. Place it in a bowl, to this add the thickened milk. Serve cold and indulge.

Tips
Coat the bread using a spoon instead of dipping it in the syrup, so that you can control the amount of syrup. Doing this will avoid it from getting soggy and you can control the amount of sweetness. The thicker the milk, the tastier it is. You can adjust the amount of sugar added to the milk based on how sweet you want the milk to be.