Soft Rasmalai Recipe - How to make Rasmalai at Home
Rasmalai, Soft and spongy flattened paneer (cottage cheese) balls soaked in thickened saffron flavoured milk and garnished with nuts.
Ingredients
Syrup to cook Paneer balls:
- 4-5 cups water
- 1 cup Sugar
For Rabri/Ras:
- 1 litre full fat milk
- 1/2 cup sugar
- Few Saffron strands
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced Almonds or Pistachios or both, divided
- 1 teaspoon Cardamom powder
Instructions
Preparing Paneer balls:
- Knead Paneer (How to make Paneer) with semolina in a platter till very smooth. Make into small balls and flatten slightly in the centre. Prepare all this way.
- Mix 5 cups water and 1 cup of sugar in a pan and bring to a boil.
- Simmer the boiling syrup and gently drop the Paneer balls.
- Cook covered for 10 minutes. Turn off heat.
- Strain the balls and cool them.
Preparing Rabri/Ras:
- In a thick bottomed pan, boil the 1 litre of full fat milk.
- Add chopped nuts, 1/2 cup of sugar and saffron strands once milk starts boiling.
- Boil until milk thickens and reduces to 75 per cent of its original volume. Turn off the heat, add Cardamom powder and mix well. Set aside to cool.
Assembling Rasmalai:
- Gently squeeze paneer balls between your palms and transfer to the thickened milk. Chill in refrigerator for few hours before serving.
- Garnish with nuts and serve chilled.
Recipe Video
Notes
For Ras/Rabri:
- Use full cream/whole milk to make Rasmalai. Low fat or fat free will not give good results.
- Also, do not over stir the milk while preparing rabdi as the cream will not form.
For Paneer/Chena balls:
- Do not use store bought paneer to make this sweet. This recipe calls for homemade paneer. Click here for all the tips to get paneer right.
- Even though you have to squeeze out the water completely from the paneer, make sure that it’s not completely dry. The chena should feel soft and moist even after you have squeezed out the water. If prepared chhena is too dry, rasmalai balls will turn hard and if it is too soft, they will break while cooking and not retain their shape after cooking. So, moisture content is the key to make good quality paneer balls.
- You can add 2 teaspoons of semolina or 1 teaspoon cornflour to the paneer and mash. This helps in binding.
- Mash paneer/ chena for at least 10 minutes. This is a crucial step, so don’t try to cut down the time.
Cooking Paneer balls in Sugar Syrup:
- Use a wide pan to cook the rasmalai balls. The balls double in size so there should be enough space in the pan for them to cook. Don’t overcrowd the pan with too many balls. Cook in 2 batches if required.
- The water to sugar ratio is 5:1 respectively. This ratio is important to get the right syrup consistency. Drop the balls in the syrup only when it comes to a full boil and the heat should be set to high throughout the duration of cooking.
- In case you have added less water and you feel the sugar syrup is getting thicker and balls are sticking to the bottom of the pan, then keep adding little water constantly. The balls should not touch the bottom of the pan. The syrup should always be thin in consistency. If you stick to 5:1 ratio, you will hardly need to add any water.
Assembling Rasmalai:
- Once the paneer balls are cooked, let them cool down to room temperature.
- Squeeze the paneer ball gently in between your palms to remove sugar syrup before adding to the saffron milk, otherwise the rasmalai balls will not absorb the milk.
- The thickened saffron milk should be warm when you add the rasmalai balls/paneer balls to it. So, basically the balls should cool down to room temperature but the saffron milk should still be warm.
- You can add nuts of your choice.
Shelf Life:
- Being a milk based dessert the shelf life of this dessert is 1 to 2 days. So, it should be ideally consumed within 2 days.