Kesar Sandesh

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Any sweet lover will fall in love with the Bengali sweets, so did I :-) I remember having a big craving for Indian sweets while I was carrying my son.  However, with a deep sigh I realized I will also have to make my own since there was no way to buy them. That is when I started cooking a series of sweet, which included Rasgulla, Rasmalai , Sandesh, Kalakhand and oh boy ...what not :-). To my amusement most of them are Bengali sweets and these are all related to each other in one way or the other.



The love for these Bengali sweets started a few years back, when I first had them on a trip to Kolkatha.  My husband and I will never forget that train journey during which we had to make a 9 hour halt in Orissa due to harthal. It wasn't fun with a nine month old baby, my daughter. But all these were compensated once we reached Calcutta, the British capital city.It is one of the most beautiful cities with a heart and soul. We enjoyed the stay as well as the delicious cuisine. If you want to taste a little bit of West Bengal, here it is....

Ingredients

Milk(whole milk)-4 cups
Lemon juice- 2Tbsp
Saffron- 1/4 tspn
Cardamom powder
Sugar-1/3 cup(Add more if you want it to be very sweet)
Pistachios-for garnishing



Method

1.Boil the milk in a pan, stir in between .
2. Once the milk starts boilind add the lemon juice while stirring and let it heat for a minute and switch off the heat.
3. Sieve this through a cheese cloth covered sieve .
4. Keep the sieve with panneer under running cold water for a few minutes.
5. Squeeze out the water .
6. Put the paneer in a bowl and knead it well for a few minutes.Meanwhile mix the saffron with a Tbsp warm milk and keep aside (to get more color you could grind the saffron before mixing)
7.Add the sugar and saffron dissolved in milk and cardamom powder and knead again.
8. Heat a pan and add this mixture into it. Stir well continuously (This is done at low heat)
9. Switch off the heat once the mix starts leaving the sides of the pan. This may take 4-5 minutes.
10.Transfer the mixture to a bowl and shape them.(If the mixture cools down, you will have cracks on your Sandesh like mine :(. So shape them while it is cool enough to handle ) This recipe gives you ~12 medium sized Sandesh.



P.S I haven added only a small pinch of saffron since my family likes it that way :-)

Contributor: Namitha