Rasgulla is a popular
bengali sweet and is pronounced as
Roshogolla or
Rosogulla by the Bengalis. Rasgulla is one of the most popular sweets in India and thanks to Haldirams for making it available in each and every corner of the country. These
spongy rasgullas are favorite to many and I am one among them.I have mentioned many times before that I never liked sweets as a kid and the only one sweet which I used to eat was rasgulla and that too I used to squeeze out the syrup a bit and eat.Now, of course the taste buds have changed drastically and I need at least a bite of sweet or a chocolate piece to satisfy my sweet cravings after every meal. I still cannot eat sweets in more quantity at once but can easily eat one or two pieces with out complaining.
I usually do not try or post these sweets recipes unless for diwali but there is a reason why I am posting a sweet recipe(for me this is a very big sweet as it is bit tricky one too) now. Today is our 10th marriage anniversary which is a milestone not to be neglected and hence posting this sweet recipe to mark our celebrations.
Coming to today's post -
rasgulla, I have been planning to post it from such a long time and finally it happened now!! I must say that the process of preparation of these rasgullas sound very simple, but it is very tricky and one can go wrong easily. I have a few failed attempts before and of course we learn from our failures too. I have gone through various blogs and cook books too to find out the mistakes and then tried them and finally got succeeded. I tried my level best to include most of the pointers which one needs to take care while preparing them in this post. Read the recipe carefully and also please go through the notes section where I have highlighted the important things to keep in mind while preparing the rasgullas at home. Though these rasgullas are easily available in the market, but one can try these homemade rasgullas for an experience too, also they taste good in their way too. You can prepare rasmalais with the homemade rasgullas too.Now let us see
how to prepare soft and spongy rasgullas at home.
Check out other popular Indian sweets(desserts) recipes in my blog:
Homemade Spongy Rasgulla Recipe:
makes 16-18 rasgullas | Author: Prathibha
Prep time: 15 mins | Cooking time: 30 mins | Total time: 45 mins
Cuisine: Bengali-Indian | Category: Sweets
Ingredients:
1 liter full cream Cow's Milk
1 tsp Sooji/Maida,optional
2-3 tbsp Lemon juice or Vinegar or 1/4 cup Yogurt
1 3/4 cups Sugar(2 cups if you want it very sweet)
4 cups Water
1/2 tsp Green Cardamom powder
Chopped Pistachios, to garnish
Saffron strands,for garnish
Method:
to prepare Chenna:
- If you milk usually gives too much of malai(cream) on top when heated, it is better to boil the milk previously and remove the thick formed cream on top of it.Otherwise this yields very greasy rasgullas.
- Boil milk in a big vessel over medium flame and keep stirring in between(otherwise the milk solids get stuck at the bottom of the vessel) until it comes to boil,now reduce the flame to LOW and add a tbsp of lemon juice and mix it nicely and check if the milk starts curdling, if not add more lemon juice until the milk starts curdling.You need to add the lemon juice until you see the slight greenish whey separates.Generally it takes 2-3 tbsp of lemon juice depending on the quality of milk.You can use vinegar instead of lemon juice in the recipe.Also, you can add yogurt in the recipe, you might need approximately 4 tbsp or more to curdle the milk.
- Once the milk curdles SWITCH OFF the flame and remove the vessel off the stove. You can add few ice cubes to the curdled mixture to avoid further cooking(which yields hard chenna), but it is optional if you do the next step quickly.Also if you are using yogurt to curdle the milk you do not need to add ice cubes or wash the chenna(which we will be doing in the next step),you can proceed to strain the mixture.
- Meanwhile line a strainer with a cheese cloth or muslin cloth and pour the curdled mixture and strain the chenna through it. You can use the collected whey to add to your gravies or to prepare roti dough or to curdle milk again later. Wash the collected chenna(lined on the strainer in a muslin cloth) thoroughly a couple of times under the running water. This process helps in removing the lemony/sour taste from the chenna, you can skip washing chenna if you have used yogurt to curdle the milk.
- Gather the edges of the muslin cloth and gently squeeze all the excess water from the chenna and tie a knot and hang it on the tap for 20-30 mins. Make sure you drain most of the water from the chenna and also ensure that it is not very dry.You can see the texture of chenna in the picture for better understanding.
to prepare rasgulla balls:
- Add sooji/maida(if using) to the crumbled paneer(chenna) and with the heels of your palm mash and knead the chenna nicely for about 7-8 mins to make a soft pliable dough .
- The chenna starts leaving the fat, means your palms will start becoming greasy which indicates you to stop kneading.
- You can divide the chenna into 16-18 equal portions and roll them into equal sized balls.You should be able to roll them into balls with out cracks, which indicates that the texture is correct.Cover the prepared balls with a slightly moist muslin cloth.
to prepare Sugar syrup and cook rasgullas:
- Add 4 cups of water and 1 3/4 cups of sugar to a large pot and let it come to a boil, add cardamom powder to it and once the sugar melts and comes to a rolling boil, gently slide each ball into the water, I added the prepared ones in two batches, do not over crowd them as they need space while boiling and they will become double in size and also to retain their round shape. Boil them for 12-15 mins over HIGH flame, you can uncover and check them in between if you want, which is actually the most fun part of the entire process to see them doubling!!
- To check whether the rasgullas are done or not - drop a rasgulla in a glass of drinking water, if it sinks,it means DONE, else put it back and let them cook for another couple of minutes and repeat the test.
- Once the rasgullas are cooked, transfer them one by one into another large bowl of plain drinking water.
- Repeat the process of cooking another batch of rasgullas and follow the same procedure and test and also transfer them to the pot of cooked rasgullas(transferred to the drinking water pot).
- Let the sugar solution(in which we boiled rasgullas) cool down and come to room temperature. If you are using saffron strands or kewra water add them at this stage after the syrup comes to room temperature.Remove the rasgullas from the plain water and squeeze them gently and put them in the cooled sugar solution.
- Chill them for 3-4 hours or over night.
- You can add chopped pistachios for garnish while serving.
Serve them and enjoy homemade soft and spongy Rasgullas!!
Notes:
- Milk plays a major role in preparing rasgullas - use only full fat milk not the toned milk.But try to remove the malai(cream) layer formed on top of the milk else it will give greasy rasgullas.
- Once the milk is curdled, switch off the flame. Do not let it cook further to avoid hard chenna which in turns gives hard rasgullas. Also thoroughly wash the chenna to remove lemony taste.
- Ready paneer does not work for this recipe.
- Try to remove most of the moisture from the chenna. If there is too much moisture your rasgullas will break in the syrup and is it is very dry it will make rasgullas dry too.
- The addition of sooji or maida is optional which helps in binding.You can completely avoid it and still get nice and spongy rasgullas.
- Knead the chenna nicely until you get a smooth dough which takes easily 7-8 mins, if you roll a ball it should not break.
- Transfer the cooked rasgullas to the regular water, this ensures that the rasgullas will not cook further and become chewy by sitting in the hot sugar syrup.
- Use wide bottomed vessel to cook rasgullas and give them enough space to expand, it is better to do it in two batches for the mentioned quantity.Else they might become flat or loose shape if not enough space is given while boiling.
- You can even pressure cook the rasgullas for one whistle in the pressure cooker over medium flame.
- Chill them in the refrigerator for best taste as they soak up the sweet sugar syrup nicely.
- I used 1 3/4 cups of sugar and they were of correct sweetness for us, but if you want them more sweet increase it to 2 cups. You can check the sweetness of your sugar syrup before you let it to cool down, if you want it more sweet or less sweet adjust by adding more sugar or water and boil it until it melts and then let it cool down.
- You can use the leftover sugar syrup to prepare shikanji or Sooji halwa or in any other sweets preparation.
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