Sandesh - Happy Valentines Day!

Its valentines day and why not celebrate with something special. Here I have Sandesh - a Bengali sweet. This recipe was in my favorites since a long time. And at last I found an occasion to make it. It was my wedding anniversary last week and I made this for the special dinner.

We need simple ingredients for making Sandesh and thats the reason why I chose to do that.... If u r a fan of milk sweets then give it a try and u'll love it.

Ingredients:

Milk - 1 litre

Powdered Sugar - 6 tbsp

Vinegar/Lime juice - 1-2 tbsp to curdle milk

Food color - optional

Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp

Pistachios (unsalted) - for decorating (I didn't had so din't used)

Procedure:

Heat milk in a heavy bottomed pan. When it starts to boil, add vinegar/lime juice to curdle. Once it is fully curdled, strain the water using a clean filter cloth and collect the curdled milk..wash this under running water and squeeze well. Keep under a heavy pot to drain excess water. wait for half hour and paneer is ready.

Gently knead this paneer with sugar and cardamom powder to a soft dough. This can be done by blending the dough in a mixer for 30 secs. This makes the kneading easy and soft dough will be ready.

This dough has to be kept in a pan in very low heat for 5 minutes to remove the raw smell. Be careful not to overcook as it causes the paneer to crumble instead of a soft dough. At this stage I removed a small part of the dough and added color to it and heated it separtely.

Now the dough is ready. Divide it into 10 equal  parts and make Sandesh of ur desired shapes. I made circles shapes and decorated with colored ones in the middle. You can also Pistachios for decorating.

Refrigerate for min 2 hrs and serve chilled.

Happy Valentines Day! :)

Points to Note:

1. Make the final sandesh balls when the dough is still warm as it helps in making shspes without breaking

2. If the dough turned little crumbly, add a few drops of milk and blend again in the mixer

3. While making balls/shapes, use a little water as it eases the process to make perfect shapes

I'm sending this recipe for Anjali's Cakes, Cookies and Desserts Event, Tickling Palates Let’s Cook #12 ~ Sweet Somethings and Zesty Palette's Sweet Luv