Bengali Rasgulla
Jun 20, 2014, Updated Jan 02, 2018
One of the most popular Indian sweets, rasgulla is made with milk and sugar!
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A lot of sweets and desserts in India are made using milk and usually they are also the most popular ones. One such popular sweet is rasgulla, it comes from the state of West Bengal which is famous for it’s mouth-watering desserts.
Rasgulla is made from “chena” which is obtained by curdling the milk. The chena is mashed, made smooth and then cooked in boiling sugar syrup. The main problem with making rasgullas at home is that it doesn’t always turn soft. Actually making this sweet at home is really easy, there are just few basic things which should be kept in mind and they will always turn out perfect.
– Use a wide pan for making the rasgullas. They increase in size when dropped in boiling sugar syrup so there should be enough space for the rasgullas to cook in the pan.
– Add some water to cool down the milk before adding the lemon juice/vinegar to curdle it.
– Squeeze out all the water from the chena before you start mashing it.
– Mash the chena with your hands for total of 10 minutes. It should be totally smooth by the end of 10 minutes.
– The water to sugar ration should be 4:1. So for 1 cup of sugar you have to add 4 cups of water and boil it at high flame.
– The rasgullas increase in size while they are cooking in the sugar syrup so don’t make them too big unless you want huge rasgullas.
– Drop the rasgullas in the sugar syrup once it’s completely boiling at high flame.
– The flame has to be high throughout the entire time when the rasgullas are cooking.
– To check if the rasgullas are cooked, drop them in fresh water. They will sink if done.
– Transfer the rasgullas from the fresh water to the sugar syrup once the sugar syrup has cooled down.
– Make a day in advance, they taste the best the next day when the rasgullas have soaked the sugar syrup well.
I will definitely update this post with step by step pictures when I make rasgullas again. Since I made these in India and it was too hot in the kitchen, I couldn’t keep up with clicking pictures side by side.
I have made these rasgullas twice already in the past 1 week and they always come out perfect. So give it a try and enjoy these soft and delicious homemade rasgullas.
* Use whole milk for best results.
* If you think the flame is too high on your gas stove and you are afraid the rasgullas might burn, you can cook them in another way. Let the sugar and water come to a boil, drop the rasgulla into it and then lower the heat to medium, cover and cook for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove the cover, flip the rasgullas, cover and let them cook for another 15 minutes on medium flame. But remember to boil the sugar syrup before adding the rasgullas.
Rasgulla
Ingredients
- 1 litre whole milk
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon cornflour
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 cups water
Instructions
- Heat milk in a heavy bottom pan.
- Once the milk comes to a boil, switch off the flame and add 1/2 cup of water to bring down the temperature a bit.
- Add lemon juice till the milk curdles.
- Drain the curdled milk using a muslin cloth. You are now left with what is known as "chena" or "paneer".
- Squeeze the muslin cloth to remove all the water from the chena.
- Take the chena in a plate and add cornflour to it.
- Mash the chena with your hands for 10 minutes to make it soft and smooth. This is an important step to make sure that the rasgullas are soft.
- Make small balls from the chena after the mashing is done.
- Meanwhile in a pan mix the sugar and water and let it boil at high temperature.
- Put the rasgulla balls in the boiling sugar syrup.
- Cook the rasgullas in sugar syrup for 18-20 minutes on high flame.
- Refrigerate the rasgullas with the syrup and serve chilled.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Bengali Rasgulla
