In the Indian subcontinent, Bengalis are known for their love of food and sweets are a big part of it. Most sweets are however made in the sweet shops. However, with more and more people living away from Bengal, people are trying to learn to make these wonderful delicacies at home. Trust me when I say that Bengali sweets are much better than the run of the mill sweets you get at your local “Indian” store. Not having a very big sweet tooth, never really wanted to make the traditional sweets. So when I finally wanted to make a traditional sweet, I decided to find a way to achieve the wonderful taste minus most of the work 🙂

Chanar Shondesh – A Bengali Sweet

Ingredients:

4-5 tbsp Butter or Ghee (clarified butter), may require more
4-5 whole Cardamom
1-2 inch Cinnamon Stick
600 gm Ricotta Cheese
1/4 Cup Confectioner Sugar
2 Cup of Powdered Milk

Heat the butter or ghee in a pan and then add Cardamom and Cinnamon in the ghee. Let the oil become aromatic about 30 seconds. You can either remove the cardamom and cinnamon from the oil at this point or keep it in the oil for a stronger flavour. Added the ricotta and confectioner sugar (you can use regular sugar or brown sugar as well). Stir until the sugar melts. Add 1 cup of powdered milk. Keep stirring to make sure that it doesn’t burn. Add more powdered milk as needed. Keep stirring until the mixture was not sticking to the pan. Transferred it to a serving dish and let it cool. Sprinkle with a little powdered milk. Serve chilled 🙂

Note:
This is not very sweet. Adjust sugar to your taste.
Normally sweets requiring chana, which means milk curd in Bengali, is made from scratch and then drained of the liquid over night.