Kalakand - made with condensed milk

My love for sweets is legendary at our home. I love all kinds of sweets, no matter where they are from. I am a total dessert egalitarian.

This sweet recipe I am presenting today is from India. It is a silky fudge made of milk, Indian cheese/paneer and sugar. It is soft, crumbly and creamy. One of the steps in the original preparation called for boiling down 1 liter if milk till it is 1/4th in volume. This takes a lot of patience and time both of which I do not have. Well maybe I do have the time but I definitely do not have the patience.

So this is a shortcut method which makes this delicious fudge in just 1/4th  the time. I have also read on the Internet that ricotta cheese can be substitute for paneer. Personally I have never done that and cannot attest to how authentic that would taste, especially since I have always found ricotta to have a slightly salty aftertaste to it.

 

 

 

 

Ingredients

400 gm paneer, finely grated or home made paneer/chenna, crumbled
1 can / 14 oz / 396 gm sweetened condensed milk
1/4 tsp cardamom powder
2 tsp ghee / clarified butter
a few strands saffron / kesar
1 tbsp pistachios, chopped up ( approximately )
edible silver leaf / warak ( optional )


Method

• Finely grate the store bought paneer or crumble your home made one and set aside.
• Grease an 8 inch thali or a cake pan with ghee and set aside.
• In a large sized saucepan, heat the ghee, the sweetened condensed milk and grated paneer altogether.
• On medium low heat, keep on stirring till the mixture thicken. This will take some time, so make sure you stay by its side and keep on stirring. Initially it will be in a very liquid state and then slowly it will all start coming together and when you stir it will move about as one solid mass. When this happen add the saffron and keep stirring for another two minutes. Now add the cardamom powder and then it is ready to come of the heat.
• Pour it out unto the greased thali/cake pan and pat it down with either a flat spoon or the bottom part of a bowl ( preferably greased too ).
• Sprinkle the chopped pistachios on it and press them down with a light hand. You can also garnish it with edible silver leaf  / warak.
• Lightly score it with a sharp knife into 2x2 inch squares, or whatever size you prefer. Let it cool down completely, this will help it set. It is now ready to enjoy.

My home made paneer along with the condensed milk, pistachios and saffron.

 

 

Stir till most of the water evaporates and mixtures moves around as one solid mass in the bowl.

 

 

Getting there, but still need to thicken a bit more. Sorry did not get the rest of the photos of the procedure as my hands were full.

 

 

 

 

End Result.