Rasgulla

A traditional Bengali sweet, soft and spongy cheese balls/dumplings floating in chilled sugar syrup. Best way to eat these is to stuff your mouth with one whole ball and you'll love the sugar syrup oozing out in your mouth... ok in plain terms..instant trip to sugar heaven!

This ought to be my most favorite of all Indian sweets, rasmalai comes close second(may be cos it has rasgullas in them). We always bought Haldiram's tin assuming it's very difficult or labor-intensive to make it at home..
 If you wanna make me happy, just give me a jar of rasgullas, all to myself!! 

 So, just before we left for our vacation, I was left with lots of milk which wouldn't stay good until we're back.. So I decided to make paneer out of it and suddenly I had a craving for something sweet. I googled for 'rasgulla' recipe and was so shocked to see how easy it is to make and made it right away. It came out so well, you guys!! I can't tell you how excited I was knowing how easy it is to make and that I mastered my favorite sweet at home!! And hey, did I tell you just need 4 ingredients? Yes, you read it right... So let's see what are the 4 ingredients... 

INGREDIENTS 

1. Milk- 4 cups (I used 2%, you can use whole milk too..no fat won't work)
2. Lemon juice - 1/4 cup 
3. Sugar - 2 cups
4. Water - 5 cups

METHOD

1. Heat the milk in a pan over medium heat stirring occasionally.
2. Mix the lemon juice in half cup of warm water.
3. When the milk starts to boil, add the diluted lemon juice to the milk and stir gently.
4. You'll see the milk solids separating from whey, turn off the heat.
5. Line the strainer with cheese cloth/ muslin cloth and pour the curdled milk and drain the whey.
6. Wash it well with cold water to get rid of lime juice.
7. Gently squeeze out the excess water or hang it for 30 mins so that the excess water drips away.
8. Now take the crumbly paneer and start kneading it gently to a soft dough.
9. Divide the dough into equal portions and roll them into smooth balls.
10. Mix sugar and water in a pressure cooker and bring it to a boil.
11. Add the balls to the syrup and close the cooker and cook for 7 mins.
12. Turn off the heat and show the cooker under the cold tap water. 
13. Open the lid, you'll notice that the balls have doubled in size.
14. Refrigerate and serve chilled.

SUGGESTIONS

1. You can add a pinch of cardamom powder or rose water to syrup.
2. The balls should be smooth without a single crack.
3. You can garnish rasgullas with saffron strands or pistachios.
4. If you are bored of it, make rasmalai.. you'll love it.
5. If your rasgulla turns out cracked, serve the rasgulla bits with ice-cream or add them to kheer.

Give it a try!
And just so you know, sharing is caring.. so send me some okay? okay!!