Sandesh / Cottage Cheese Fudge

Sandesh is for my last day of Blogging marathon. I thought, I already have 7 recipes for 7 days but today when I sat for blogging, I found that the recipe for last day was missing in my drafts. Immediately, I prepared this easy sweet dish. It is easy too if you have fresh paneer at home. It became around 6 PM in the evening by the time I finished this recipe and the natural light had vanished. So, I was forced to take pictures under the florescent light. Hope you like the pictures and enjoy the dish as well. Here you go…

Basic Information:
Preparation & Cooking time: 45 – 50 minutes
Makes: 8 nos

Ingredients:

Paneer – 1 cup, crumbled

Granulated sugar – 1/4 cup

Cardamom – 2 nos

Saffron streaks – a small pinch

Pistachio nuts – 1 tablespoon, roughly crushed

Method:

1) Mix sugar and cardamom together and make a powder of it using a coffee grinder or mixer. Keep it aside.

2) Knead the crumbled paneer for 5-10 minutes.

3) Towards the end of kneading, add sugar, cardamom mixture and saffron. Try to make a small ball now using a pinch of paneer. If you are able to make a smooth ball, then you can proceed with the next step. Otherwise, continue kneading.

4) Heat a pan in a medium heat. Add the kneaded paneer.

5) Cook it on low heat by constantly stirring it. Initially the paneer looks like thick dough and doesn’t form a shape as shown in the picture.

6) After 15-20 minutes, you can see the paneer becomes thick, starts coming together and doesn’t stick to the pan. At this time, remove from heat.

7) Allow it to cool for a while. After some time, knead it again for 5 minutes.

8) Divide them into equal balls and make desired shapes.

9) Garnish it with pistachio nuts. Keep in refrigerator for some time and serve chill.

10) When it is cooling down, it will become hard a bit.

Note:

1) Try to prepare sandesh using fresh paneer. If you don’t have paneer, try replace it with ricotta cheese. It will also work out.

2) Do not heat after the paneer forms a thick dough. Otherwise, you will ended up with paneer crumbles which you can’t use for making shapes.

3) At the same time, do not allow the sauteed/cooked paneer to sit for long time. Make shapes when it is slightly warm. This helps making perfect shapes.

4) You can also add milk powder/corn starch before cooking the paneer in pan. But I felt adding corn starch made the Sandesh litter harder than usual. So, I skipped adding it this time while preparing it.

I’m linking this recipe to Srivalli’s Blogging Marathon #12 under the theme of paneer. Check out what others are cooking by clicking it here.