Shital's-Kitchen: Kesar Malai Sandwich

Monday, July 14, 2014

Kesar Malai Sandwich

With so many festivals lined up, I am trying to share new recipes with you all well in advance so that you could plan on making new and delicious recipes for your family and friends. I know it is very easy to buy a box of sweet from the store, but they are not always fresh and not made with so much of care and love for your loved one. When we celebrate a festival, we are bringing in love, happiness and positive energy into our home. You cannot achieve the same with store bought, made in bulk sweets. Although the store bought sweets looks pretty and are professionally packaged, there is nothing like homemade, hand garnished sweet using best quality products.

You will see most of my Indian sweets or Mithai recipe served in my Sterling Silver cutlery. This is because these sweets are first offered to God before getting to taste them. Rich in color, texture, and flavor, none of these sweets have the use of food color or artificial flavorings in them.

Raksha Bandhan, Janmashtmi, Ganesh Chathurthi, Navratri, Diwali... plan your festivals and sweets so that you have time to shop and prep in advance.

This recipe make 7 large Malai Sandwiches

Boil 4 cups of milk in a heavy bottom pan. Add around 1 to 2 tbsp. lime juice for milk to curdle. Turn of the heat. Strain in a strainer lined with cheese cloth or a muslin cloth. Rinse freshly made cottage cheese with cold water and wring it well. Keep it hung for around 30 minutes to get rid of excess water.





After 30 minutes, remove fresh cottage cheese on a plate. Cottage cheese/ Paneer should be dry and crumbly. Knead it with your palm for 5-7 minutes to form a soft dough.








Divide into 7 equal parts and make smooth, slightly flattened balls.


Boil 1 1/2 cup sugar with 4 cups water into a pressure cooker.
Add paneer balls to boiling syrup. Cover with a lid and cook on medium heat till you hear a whistle blow. turn off the heat and let the pressure cooker cool before opening the lid.

Remove each cooked Paneer balls in a plate. Cover and refrigerate for 4-5 hours or a day.


When nicely chilled, cut each paneer patty into half. These can be filled with whipped cream or dehydrated milk or any filling of your choice.  






To make the filling
Mix 1/2 cup mawa/khoya/dehydrated milk with 1/8 cup of sugar. Add 1 tsp. milk and a pinch of saffron for color.

Mix well till the sugar dissolves. Divide into 7 equal parts. Make into patties that can be sandwiched between cottage cheese slices.

OR
You could also heat the mixture and bring it to boil. Cook till the moisture evaporates and leaves the pan. Add 1 tsp. cardamom powder. 1 tsp. sliced almonds, 1 tsp. pistachio slices. Mix well. Let the mixture cool completely and divide into 7 parts to form patty. 

Prepare a surface to assemble. Few finely chopped almonds and pistachios for garnishing. 

This was my mava/khoya mixture. It was slightly runny, but I loved the texture of smooth mawa filling in my malai sandwiches.

I also like to dissolve a pinch of saffron into 1 tbsp warm milk. This gives beautiful color and can be used for garnishing of decorating malai sandwiches.

Place a bit of mawa mixture or your mawa patty between sliced cottage cheese ball.


Decorate with a dab of saffon dissolved milk and garnish with chopped almonds, pistachios and saffron strands. Refrigerate for few hours and serve chilled.













Enjoy your Festivities!!

30 comments:

  1. Awesome recipe(I'll definitely try this).. I really wonder how you manage to take pictures (step by step) and then neatly present it in your blog.. You are a wonderful lady with so much potential. Good luck...

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    1. Thank you so much, I am more of hands-on and pictorial person, love to explain with pictures to make it interesting for others. :) Thanks a lot for your beautiful comment! :)

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  2. That is beautiful pictorial, Shital. Hats off to you!

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  3. Lovely

    Which milk did u use whole, regular

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    1. Thank you!!

      I used whole milk for this recipe.

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  4. You are very creative Shital...The detailed step by step description of recipes along with the pictures make the understanding very easy :) Thanks a lot for sharing your's innovative recipes .

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  5. The pan in which you made panner is super beautiful .. Can you please share where you picked it up from. Thanks

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    1. Thank you :) I found that at Ross. I too loved the patern and tilt in the pan so bought it. :)

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  6. Looks delicious, will definetly make it. Thanks for posting.

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  7. Wow, thanks for sharing this mouth watering dish. I am surely gonna say my momma to make this on the Rakshabandhan. Best Wishes in advance.

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    1. Enjoy the festivities and do send me a picture on my fb page :)

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  8. Shital,
    Great recipe. I would love to try it. I am not a very confident cook :-) But we do love rangoli sweets. So, want to give this a try. A quick question regarding the filling: do both the fillings need to be heated or the first one is just mixing everything at room temp. Does it still come out soft?
    Thanks so much,
    Shalini

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    1. Thank you Shalini! No, you need not heat it. It will be nice and soft. If you do heat it, it will take a long time till moisture from sugar evaporates and the mixture becomes thick.

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  9. Hi Shital,

    I tried this recipe and followed itoto the T and it turned out perfect.
    THANKS to you for sharing such amazing recipes.
    I couldnt believe I could actually make my favourite sweet myself..

    keep posting..Looking fwd to.more such recipes :).

    Thanks

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    1. That is great! Thanks a lot Dipti for your feedback!

      Enjoy your festivals!

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  10. Hi Shital,
    I am planning to make this and would also prefer my filling to be runny. Can I use mawa powder? if so would heating the mawa powder along with nuts and sugar make it runny? If not do I need to use fresh mawa if so is it available at Indian stores in bay area?

    Thanks, Devanshi

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    1. Yes, use mawa powder, sugar and nuts together ad heat it. But it would be better if you heat the mawa powder with a bit of milk and saffron first. turn off the heat and add nuts. cool and bit and then add sugar. that wlll also make it runny and soft textured. You could use store bought mawa too from an indian store

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  11. Shital I have been following your recipes on epicurean delights, you have quite a fan following. You at an absolutely amazing person. Wonder how you do it. No words to express. A big fan myself- Ruchi Aggarwal

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  12. Hi shital
    This really looks nice...I am goin to giv a tea party soon and I want to serve this...so can I mk this a day or 2 in advance

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  13. Hi Shital, looks yummy and would love to make it.But a quick question. What is dehydrated milk? Is it same as evaporated milk? Thanks in advance !

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  14. Thanks Shital for wonderful receipes,I have made this sweet today, it is really looking very good, haven't tasted yet but sure that it will taste good as well :)
    Have also made Rasmalai on diwali and it was a hit.
    Thanks for providing step by step instructions they are very accurate and precise.

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  15. Its an amazingly simple recipie....thanks for sharing it. However I am sure I went wrong some where. The rasmalai I tried making turned out to be quite hard. The fluffyness and softness was missing. Could suggest the possible reasons why could it have happened?

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