Sandesh Recipe : A Festive Bengali Sweet Dish!

This delicious dish is highly fragrant, aromatic and mouth-watering. As it is prepared, its tempting aroma is spread all over the surrounding. This Bengali sweet dish is prepared from just three basic ingredients available in every house. It also gets assembled only in few minutes. It’s prepared even quicker if you already have the stored paneer in your fridge.

It is not at all difficult to make the Sandesh retaining the authentic taste and flavors at home. It is an easy sweet dish recipe which can be prepared instantly. With the little attention, you can instantly make this delicious cottage cheese fudge. It does not require any expertise or experience in cooking. Even the beginners in the cooking can try to make this sweet. Once you try, you would want to keep making it.

This popular Bengali sweet dish is similar to the cottage cheese fudge. This dish can be made any time but it’s commonly prepared for the special occasions or during the festival seasons. The Sandesh or Sondesh is an important sweet dish made for Durga puja during Navratri. This delicious Bengali dessert dish is not just popular in Indian but also prepared all the world.

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Remarks:

• The time required for the Sandesh Recipe is less than 30 minutes. You need only half-an-hour to prepare paneer and to cook Sandesh.
• The variation in the flavor of the dish is up to you.
• The sweetness level can be kept mild or high according to your health preference.
• Add less than ¼ tsp. of salt. Adding more salt can ruin the sweetness of the dish.
• If you are not serving them immediately, then keep the Sandesh in the fridge.
• The Sandesh will spoil if it is kept at room temperature for longer time.
• Always knead the Chhena (Paneer) with the light hands.
• The shelf life of the Sandesh is very short. You must use it the same day you make it.
• It is not advisable to refrigerate the Sandesh. But if you still want to refrigerate then you must finish the Sandesh within 2 or 3 days.
• The paneer is cooked so that its rawness goes away. Just cook enough to vanish the raw smell.

Garnishing Idea:

The sweet smell of Sandesh is highly attractive but you can make the dish more tempting with proper garnishing. To decorate the Sandesh in a way that it looks appealing to your eyes, you can use any of the below ideas.

Take one small bowl of the warm water. Take some saffron strands and mix them it this water. Properly stir the mixture to make the saffron paste. Then keep it aside for some time. Let it cool. Then you can garnish the prepared Sandesh with few drops of the saffron paste. You can use a little cream to make the thick creamy paste.

If you do not want to make a paste of saffron strands, then you can directly keep it over them. Make tiny spot with the fork or back-end of a spoon and place some saffron strand in the center. You can also garnish the Sandesh with crushed pineapple along with a drop of saffron paste and put sliced pistachio over it.

For the traditional looks, add some chopped or grated nuts in the center of the Sandesh. You can decorate these cheesy balls with any ingredient of your choice. With the sprinkle of the chocolate chips, they will become more attractive. You can also use some chocolate sprinkles if you like.

Garnish the Sandesh with:

• Saffron Strands
• Tutti-Frutti
• Chocolate Sprinkles
• Chocolate Chips
• Dry Fruits (Sliced or Chopped)
  • Raisins
  • Cashews
  • Pistachios
  • Almonds

Serving Suggestion:

Serve the sweet dish along with some snack of savory flavor which will contract the taste of the sweet dish. You can serve the sweet Sandesh with the various savory snacks like Namak Pare or fried Chakli.

Also, you can eat the Sandesh immediately as it is prepared. But, its taste best when you serve it chilled. So, keep it in the fridge as it is made and then serve it later after some time.

Quick Tip:

• For the best results, always use freshly made paneer.
• Do not dry the mixture, else paneer will become rubbery.
• Kneading paneer with heavy hands or heavy weight can release oil from it.
• You may use the powdered form of Saffron, Cashew, Pistachios, or Almond instead of Cardamom.
• If you overcook the paneer it will become crumbly.
• You can prepare this sweet without cooking paneer or chhena.
• You can also grind the Chenna, sugar and cardamom powder in grinder.
• If you are grinding the ingredients, it would reduce process timing as you don’t have to knead.
• While cooking the mixture, if you think it has turned dry, then you can add few drops of milk.
• Whenever your mixture turns crumbly, grind it once and then knead it smoothly.

The Sandesh Recipe is easy to follow and simple to attempt. This melt-in-mouth dessert can be easily made and quickly assembled at home. This is also an amazing sweet dish because it is low on sugar. You can adjust the proportion of sugar and make it as preferred for your diet. So whether or not you are a dessert lover, you would want to try this recipe.

It is so easy to prepare that you will wonder, why you didn’t make it before. The preparation of Sandesh is not only easy but also quicker than other sweet dish recipes. The sweet Sandesh or Sondesh is nothing but the mixture of the crumbled chhena with the sugar and flavoring agent. The addition of powdered sugar infuses the sweetness in the dish.

Whereas the sprinkle the cardamom powders enhances the flavors and aroma of the dish. As the paneer is crumbly, it gives the granulated texture to the dish. Learn to make the traditional sweet dish of Bengali and impress your guest at home. Sweeten your festive celebrations with this authentic Sandesh. This dish is also tagged as the queen of all the Bengali sweet dishes.

It a super hit sweet made with sweetened cottage cheese along with the saffron strands. Though this delicacy is the specialty Bengal, but is served as a sweet or dessert at every other place. With each place, the Sandesh recipe changes a little. It is prepared in several different ways with customized flavors using fresh homemade paneer.

The whole process of preparing Sandesh is not tough but its needs a little attention. It is divided into main parts. The first step is to make the fresh homemade paneer, but you can skip this part if you have already have prepared paneer. Then you have mash and knead the paneer with the sugar and cardamom powder. You can also cook paneer with the Jaggery. If you use Jaggery, your Sandesh would be little brown in color.

But if you use sugar, your Sandesh would be creamier and whiter in colour. If you want, you can tweak with the traditional Sandesh recipe, as Jaggery infuses little rustic flavors and aroma in the Sandesh. Learn to make and celebrate your occasions with highly appreciated recipe amongst the sweet dishes– “Sandesh”. Prepare today & enjoy along with family.

The dish allows to give the custom touch to the flavors. Although the simplicity remains intact with the use of only paneer, sugar, and cardamom. The strong aroma cardamom along with crumbled paneer and sugar creates a mouth-watering temptation to eat the dish. While you are cooking the paneer, you need to little attentive and take some precautions.

It is important to not overcook paneer and cook it just enough to make the sweet. The key for the best tasting Sandesh is the correct texture and right consistency with balanced flavors. It has sweet taste with mild aromatic flavors of cardamom. The Sandesh or the Sondesh is a small round of little sweet treats. It is most highly appreciate dessert or sweet dish.

How can we make Sandesh at home?

You can make Sandesh at home with more than one method. There so many variations which you can try while preparing Sandesh at home. Each of this variation is simple, easy and quick to attempt.  There are so many flavoring agents which you can use while making Sandesh recipe.

The simplest of all the variation is to get the three basic ingredients. Make the Sandesh from the chhena (paneer), sugar and cardamom powder. Mix and knead the ingredients with paneer. Cook the paneer mixture and refrigerate it. To prepare flavored Sandesh is also just as much as to prepare paneer and knead it. All the other variations are quite simple as well.

For the other variations, you can try adding cashews, it will make the Kaju Sandesh. Adding the chopped pistachios will make it Sandesh Pista. Prepare the Sandesh and steam it to make it the bhapa Sandesh. You can also use dates (Khajur) to prepare the dates Sandesh. For all the ice cream lovers, you can also make ice-cream Sandesh. Even the chocolate Sandesh is easy to make at home. Make all these different variations of Sandesh for special or festive occasions

What is Sandesh made of?

Sandesh is made of paneer which is kneaded along with the flavoring agents and the sugar. You can also various chopped raw or roasted nuts. The addition of nuts infuses the nutty aroma and provided the crunchiness.

How can we make Chena?

Chena is referred to the cheese like product we get after boiling the milk. As the milk begins to curdle, we can obtain the fresh and raw cheese. The process is exactly same as making paneer at home. This unripened cheese is collected from the whole full-fat milk. This crumbly texture chhena is used for making various Indian sweets or dessert dishes.

The combination of its taste and texture makes is a perfect base for these kinds of dishes. It is one kind of paneer but a little bit softer and crumblier than it. To make Chena at home, you do not require much time and neither lot many ingredients. It gets prepared in few minutes with few basic ingredients. Though it is made from a just handful of ingredients but they are a very important ingredient and cannot be skipped.

For preparing the Chena, you need would fresh and full-fat content milk. You can use any milk but buffalo’s milk will give the best Chena. But, you can use any kind of milk to make this type of cheese. Then, you would need something for the curd culture which initiates the curdling of the milk. The best ingredient to use is lemon juice but you can use curd or vinegar or citric acid. Use very little, enough to separate the whey. Then filter and squeeze the excess water to collect the required chhena.