As a child, I was never too fond of sweets but there was this one sweet which I always loved and it was none other than Rasmalai. The spongy, soft ras malai melting in the mouth was my ultimate indulgence. I started making a lot of sweets ever since I got married, all thanks to my husband who has a sweet tooth 🙂 However I stayed away from making rasmalai for quite some time because I always thought they would be very difficult and time consuming.

One fine day as I was getting bored I decided to give rasmalai a try and to my surprise they are really not difficult to make at all. This was my first attempt at making Kesar Rasmalai and it came out pretty well. It’s the usual rasmalai with a hint of saffron. This recipe will make 8-10 of them.

For more tips and tricks on how to make perfect Rasmalai at home, please read this post – How To Make Soft Rasmalai At Home.

Ingredients

For The Rasmalai

Full Cream Milk: 1 liter [to make chena]

Sugar: 1 cup

Water: 4 cups

Cornflour: 1.5 teaspoona

Lemon Juice: 3 tablespoons

Few Saffron Strands

 

For The Milk Syrup

Full Cream Milk: 500 ml

Sugar: 3 Tbsp or to taste

Ccardamom Powder: 1/2 tsp

Chopped pistachio: 1-2 tablespoon

Few saffron strands

 

Method

We will first make the ras malai discs.

1. Heat milk in a heavy bottom pan and let it come to a boil. Add few safron strands in it. The saffron will give a nice yellow color to the ras malai discs.

2. Once it starts boiling, remove it from the flame and let it cool a bit. You can add 1/2 cup water into the milk to bring the temperature down. So once the milk has cooled down a bit start adding lemon juice slowly till the milk curdles.

3. Strain the curdled milk using a cotton cloth. What you have now is called chena. Wash the chena properly so that there’s no taste of lemon juice in it. Squeeze out all the water from the chena. This step is important.

4. Next add the cornflour to the chena and mash with your hands for 7-8 minutes to make it soft and smooth. This is yet another important step to make sure that the rasmalais are soft and spongy.

5. Meanwhile in a pan mix the sugar and water and let it boil at high temperature.

6. Make small balls from the chena and press them a little to give a disc shape. Remember the ras malai will increase in size later so make small discs.

7. Put the rasmalai in the water-sugar syrup. The syrup should have been boiling at this point of time.

8. Let the rasmalais cook in the water-sugar syrup for 15-20 minutes on high flame. The Rasmalai discs are now done.

 

We will now make the thickened milk syrup

1. Take milk in a heavy bottom pan, keep the flame on medium.

2. Once it boils you have to keep stirring it till only 40-50% of original amount is left.

3. Once the milk thickens add sugar and chopped nuts. Also add some saffron strands and the cardamom powder.

 

Now let the rasmalai discs cool down before you put them in the thickened milk. [the milk should be lukewarm when you add the rasmalai balls]. Garnish with some leftover nuts and serve chilled.

Your Kesar Rasmalai is ready! Doesn’t it look yummy?

Tips

– Add the lemon juice only after the milk has cooled down a bit. If you will add lemon juice in boiling milk the resulting chena will not be soft.

– Mash the chena using your hands for good 7-8 minutes to make it soft and smooth.

– Keep an eye on the rasmalais when they are cooking in the boiling hot water-sugar syrup, if you see the syrup thickening up, keep adding water at regular intervals else the thickened sugar will get stuck to the rasmalai.

– Please read this detailed post on how to make perfect soft rasmalais at home – How To Make Soft Rasmalai At Home