Calories in Kulfi

Kulfi is milk reduced on a slow flame until thick, sweetened and frozen without churning. The recipe here uses 250 ml of milk and 15 g of sugar for a single kulfi and nothing else: no khoya, no cream, no nuts. That much milk in one kulfi is a large portion, more like a full matka kulfi than a thin stick, and the figure should be read that way. Among the 20 sweets in the set it ranks 11th from the lightest, just heavier than a piece of coconut barfi at 265 kcal and lighter than a bowl of seviyan kheer at 279 kcal.

Carbohydrate supplies 45% of the energy, fat 42% and protein 13%. Everything except the 15 g of sugar comes from the milk, so a plain kulfi is nutritionally a glass of milk with sugar, concentrated and frozen. That is why it has 8.7 g of protein, a figure closer to a kheer than to a barfi. It also means the type of milk decides the fat: the 12.7 g here is the milk's own, and kulfi made with cream or khoya goes higher.

A kulfi of this size is about 13% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 16% of a woman's. Two come to 532 kcal. Because it is mostly milk, it brings 8.7 g of protein with its sugar, which a syrup-based sweet does not. It has almost no fibre. As an evening sweet in summer it is best counted as the day's dessert, with tea or coffee taken without sugar that day if the total matters. For a child, a small-mould kulfi made at home is a lighter serving than this one.

One kulfi is counted at 28.1 g of sugars, well above the 15 g of sugar added, because the natural sugar of 250 ml of milk is included in that figure. Its 12.7 g of fat is milk fat. Kulfi from a street cart also raises a hygiene question in the monsoon, since it is a milk product kept on ice. Anyone with diabetes should ask their doctor or dietitian how a frozen milk sweet fits their plan.