Rasamalai

This is my all time favorite sweet. In fact, I should say its my family sweet.. Everytime we go for any get together we dont even go for a second thought and order this sweet. Everyone likes it. So I have tried it for pajaaka's event.

Cooking time : 45 min
Makes 6-8 balls

Ingredients:
For Malai:
Milk - 1/2 litre (For best results use full cream milk)
Lemon juice - 3 tablespoons
Sugar - 1 cup
Milk powder / plain flour - 1-2 tablespoons
Water - 2 cups

For flavoured Milk:
Milk - 1/2 litre
Sugar - 1/2 cup or as required
Cardamom powder - 1 teaspoon
Saffron - 1/4 tsp (soaked in warm water/milk)
Sliced Nuts for garnishing (Almonds, Cashew, Pistachios, etc)



Method:
For Malai:
1. Take a thick bottomed pan and boil the milk well.
2. Reduce the flame, add lemon juice slowly, stirring the milk continously.
3. As the curdling process begins, continue stirring.
4. When all the milk turns curd and water separates out, immediately add ice cubes to stop the curdling process further(this is an important step to avoid hardening of malai).
5. Use a clean muslin/cotton cloth to extract the solid parts. This is called paneer or cottage cheese.
6. Run cold water thoroughly from outside in order to avoid the lemon's smell in the dish.
7. Drain the water fully and knead it to make a smooth dough. If needed, sprinkle milk powder or plain flour to get a smoother consistency.
8. Make them into small balls and flatten them with your palm and keep them aside.
9. Heat sugar and water in 1:2 ratio and allow it to boil.
10. As it starts boiling, reduce the flame and add the flattened cakes one by one slowly.
11. Let it cook for 10-15 minutes. Once the balls puff up and start floating on the surface indicating it is cooked, you can take them out and keep them aside.

For flavoured milk:
1. Boil milk in a heavy bottomed pan.
2. Stir it continuously until the volume reduces to half and becomes thick.
3. Add sugar, cardamom powder, saffron water/milk and stir well, until sugar dissolves (5-10 minutes).

Put off the flame let it cool for sumtime and add the cheese balls one by one.
Garnish it with nuts and allow it to cool completely.
Refrigerate and serve chilled.