Kesar Rasgulla / Saffron Cottage Cheese Balls In Sugar Syrup

Kesar Rasgulla / Saffron Cottage Cheese Balls In Sugar Syrup is a saffron flavored rasgulla made by making balls from chenna (cottage cheese) and soaking it in the saffron flavored sugar syrup. It is a popular sweet from Eastern parts of India and is famous world wide. It is gluten free and can be enjoyed while fasting /Upwaas/ Vraat. It is enjoyed during festivals such as Janmashthami, Navratri, Diwali or Holi.

Course Dessert, gluten free, sweet

Cuisine Bengali, Indian, Odisha

Keyword bengali, celebration, chenna, dessert, diwali, festivalfood, glutenfree, jamashthami, kesar, kids, mik, navratri, paneer, saffron, sugarsyrup, Sweet, upwaas, vraat

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

20 minutes

Total Time 40 minutes

Servings rasgulla

Calories 139kcal

Ingredients

Making Chenna

3 l milk I have used regular low fat milk
3 tbsp lemon juice

For Sugar Syrup

2.5 l water
3 cup sugar I have used raw sugar. (You can use the regular sugar)
1 tsp saffron strands kesar
2 tsp rose water optional
5 cardamom whole cardamom pods

Instructions

Making Chenna

Put milk to boil on low heat in a heavy bottom pan stirring in between.
Once the milk starts boiling, add lemon juice and mix well. Keep the heat low.
The milk will start to curdle. Keep on stirring the mixture till the entire milk is curdled well and greenish whey is separated.
Put cloth in a strainer. Pour the curdled milk mixture. Drain the water. This water is known as whey and is very nutritious. You can use it to knead chapati dough or making dal or soup. The solid mixture is known as chenna, fresh paneer or cottage cheese.
Pour fresh water over the strained chenna to remove the sourness of lemon. Bring the edges of the cloth together and squeeze excess water. Now keep the squeezed chenna along with the cloth chenna on the tap for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, the excess water from the chenna would be removed and it will come together like a ball. Remove in a flat plate.
Knead the chenna like dough till it becomes soft and all the coarse grains of the chenna are smoothen. Knead for almost 7-8 minutes. (Many people prefer adding semolina or plain flour at this stage while kneading the chenna). (Here you can also add few drops of saffron color or few strands of saffron to get yellow colour).
The chenna will become smooth and come together like a dough.
Take small portion from the chenna dough and smoothen it between palms and roll into ball. There should be no crack in the ball. Make all the remaining balls similarly and cover with a wet cloth and keep aside till sugar syrup is ready.

Sugar Syrup

In a big pan add water, sugar, saffron and cardamom pods. Mix well.
Bring the mixture to boil stirring in between. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes. The sugar syrup is ready. Add rose water and mix well.

Boiling Chenna balls in sugar syrup

Add the prepared chenna./paneer /cottage cheese balls in the boiling syrup one by one.
Cover and cook for 15 minutes.
The balls will double in size.
The rasgulla are ready. Keep them in the syrup and cool completely. They are ready to serve or refrigerate.
Since I have made big quantity of rasgulla, I have boiled them in batches in sugar syrup. I have removed the rasgulla in a plate after they were boiled
I have cooked the other remaining rasgulla as above and after the other batch of rasgulla got cooked, I added the rasgulla that were kept aside and mixed well. The entire batch of rasgulla are ready. I have kept them aside till they come to room temperature and then refrigerate them before serving.
The rasgulla is so spongy.
Remove the rasgulla in a bowl and pour the prepare sugar syrup over it. Sprinkle some saffron strands and serve. (Once the rasgulla are cooled, they will get nice saffron color on them)
This picture is taken in yellow light.

Nutrition