barfi

An Indian sweet served often for Diwali, based entirely on milk! It tastes a bit like fudge, and they can be flavoured with interesting spices!
Most recipes use milk powder, which considerably speeds up the process and gives a crumbly texture. I've also tried just reducing milk to the right consistency with a bit of corn starch, and that does work, too, but for one 4 ╳ 4 cm square, I boiled down half a litre of milk.

Recipe (with milk powder)

This makes enough to fill one 流し器 comfortably

70 gr ghee
250 gr milk
200 gr sugar
310 gr milk powder

Heat milk, ghee and sugar; then add sifted milk powder (it clumps like mad!). Stir constantly for 5' (otherwise you'll get scorched bits), then add a good amount of salt and spices. Continue to stir until it's no longer sticky (about 10'). Spread, add nuts and chill before cutting.

Traditionally, it's covered with silver leaf: In this case, I'd add the nuts with the spices, and cover with silver leaf. This looks very clean and probably very nice for 干菓子.

Spices

Traditional is kardamom, which certainly is nice. For the recipe above, add 1 full tea spoon. Top with pistachios. However, to add more texture to the sweet, I think the pistachios can be candied.

In saying that, I've tried one version where I've infused the milk with chamomile overnight before adding it. To my Western palate, this tastes very nice! Next time, I might expand this with orange blossom water and poppy seeds.