Calories in Besan Barfi

Besan barfi here is gram flour roasted in ghee, enriched with khoya and set with sugar. The recipe takes 50 g of besan, 35 g of khoya, 35 g of sugar and 25 g of ghee and yields 4 pieces. A single piece therefore has 12 g of besan, 9 g each of khoya and sugar, and 6 g of ghee, which is a small square of the kind cut at home. Mohanthal and shop besan barfi are usually thicker and noticeably heavier on ghee. In the set of 20 sweets this is the 4th lightest, just under besan ladoo at 168 kcal and above atta ladoo at 142 kcal.

Fat supplies 47% of the energy, carbohydrate 43% and protein 10%. The ghee is the main source of fat, with a smaller amount from the khoya. Besan is a pulse flour, so it gives more protein and fibre than suji or maida would: the piece has 4.3 g of protein and 1.3 g of fibre. That is a modest advantage. The ghee and sugar needed to turn roasted besan into barfi still account for most of the calories in the piece.

For a sedentary man one piece of besan barfi is about 8% of the daily energy requirement, and for a woman 10%. Two pieces come to 324 kcal and three to 486 kcal, so a few pieces from a festival box add up fast. Besan barfi is a little more substantial than a milk sweet of the same size because of the pulse flour, and one piece with unsweetened tea is a complete snack. Half a piece is about 81 kcal, useful when a guest is expected to taste everything on the plate.

One small piece has 8.6 g of fat, mostly ghee, and 10.9 g of sugars, lower than most sweets in this group, but that depends entirely on the piece being small. A thicker shop piece is not the piece described here. Besan's protein and fibre do not turn barfi into a snack for people with diabetes; anyone managing blood sugar should follow the guidance of their doctor or dietitian on sweets.