Coconut Burfi, Made Easy

D brought home a lovely little cookbook called The Usborne Yummy Little Cookbook and we decided a fun recipe for coconut mice. It was loads of fun to try and make the mouse-shaped sweets, but the surprise was that this thoroughly cute recipe resulted in sweets that were identical to Coconut Burfi - the Indian sweet dish that traditionally takes loads of cooking, elbow grease and some prayer (since burfis can sometimes harden to the consistency of rocks!)

We were able to make some mice for D, and then bowls-ful of traditional burfi balls.

Ingredients:
Three cups shredded coconut
One cup condensed milk
Two cups powdered sugar
Food coloring

Optional:

Small confectioners stars to serve as the eyes for the mouse

Kenny's Watermelon Juicy Twist licorice for the tails

M&Ms for ears

One kid who is going to enjoy the process of messing around with sweet ingredients and constructing mice!

• In a bowl, mix the coconut and sugar so that the mixture is evenly blended
• Mix in the condensed milk - this will take quite a bit of elbow grease to make sure the mixture is evenly coated
• Separate out the mixture into two or more batches, so you can have fun with colors
• Mix in the colors - the original recipe suggested using a little red dye in one batch for pink mice, and a lot in the second batch for bright red mice. We made red, blue and yellow mice (very close to a patriotic show of red, white and blue!)
• For mice:
• Dip a tablespoon in water, then scoop some of the mixture and pat it flat. This is up-turned onto a dish or wax paper to server as the body of the mouse
• Pinch the tapered tip of the resulting mouse "body" to create a nose
• Pop on some confectioners stars for eyes, M&Ms behind them to serve as ears
• Pop in a piece of licorice that can serve as the mouse's tail
• For more conventional burfi balls, just make sure to moisten your hands and roll little spheres of the mixture to make round coconut burfi balls
• Place in the fridge for an hour to ensure they stabilize and harden appropriately

In all, this whole procedure can take less than 15 minutes if you're in a hurry to whip something up for a quick dinner party...or can be drawn out interminably if you're looking to entertain the kids!