Subho Bijoya
Saffronstreaks wishes everyone who stops by a very happy Vijaydashami.
On this special occasion, we @ saffronstreaks are celebrating Dussehra or Vijaydashami with a sweet note kalakand or qalakand – the delectable Indian milk fudge.
The origin of qalakand can be traced back its root to Arabic cuisine, as the root word qand means sweet in Arabic language. (courtesy : Wikipedia)
This is one of the most scrumptious sweet in North and East India where milky white kalakand are hugely popular but in Western India, its fried version or the Ajmeri Kalakand is more in demand, where it is also known as milk cake. The best part of Ajmeri kalakand is that it is fried with lots of fresh figs (hence anjeer kalakand), which imparts a grainy texture to it and enhance the flavour too. I am yet to find a good recipe for making Ajmeri kalakand or milk cake.
Of all the cherished memories of my childhood, I always relate kalakand as a solid milky white mass garnished with pistachios and almonds with traces of saffron, and has no inherent flavour. But nowadays, it comes as a single pieces or like burfi, sometimes with rose flavour.
The recipe of making kalakand is ridiculously simple, only you have to be extremely cautious while making this. At home, the milky white color of kalakand may be difficult to achieve, as we evaporate the milk to 1/3 rd its measure, it slowly acquires a pinkish hue.
- Milk (full fat / not skimmed) : ½ gallon = 8 cups = 2 quarts = 2 litre
- Sugar (granular) : ½ cup
- Juice of one lemon
- Nuts or dry fruits mostly pistachios and almonds or raisins
- A few threads of saffron (optional)
- Alum : few pieces (optional)
- Ghee / clarified butter (optional) : ½ tsp
- Divide the milk into half and boil 4 cups milk in a deep bottom pan.
- Bring it to first boil and add juice of lemon in it and stir slightly.
- Take it off the heat and wait till the milk curdles and whey get separated.
- This is called chhana and strain it in a colander lined with cheese cloth or muslin cloth.
- Wash the chhana /paneer in water to get rid off the acidic aftertaste.
- Do not knead the chhana, just crumble it with your finger.
- Meanwhile, in a non stick pan, boil the remaining 4 cups milk.
- This milk need to be solidified like khova. So you can either use alum to solidify the milk in few minutes or keep on simmering on a low to medium heat till it reduce to ⅓ rd of its original measure.
- I do the latter one and it took almost half an hour.
- Take extra caution here, while simmering the milk, with occasional stir so that milk should not get burned at the bottom.
- Once the milk get reduced to the desired amount, add the crumbled chhana or paneer in it and keep on stirring.
- This may take another 15-20 minute.
- Towards the end stage of making kalakand, stir more vigorously till the mixture thickens and forms a soft dough like consistency.
- This is the time to add the sugar, and mix the sugar properly for another 5 minutes.
- Drizzle ½ tsp melted ghee or clarified butter and mix once more.
- Take off from the heat and pour it over serving dish.
- Flatten it out to give a square box shape keeping the width ½ inch in thickness.
- Garnish the kalakand with pistachios and almonds or raisins while it is still warm.
- Let it cool for another half an hour before cutting it into desired shapes.
Serve the delicious kalakand warm or at room temperature and can be refrigerated till one week.
Enjoy !!!
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19 Comments
sayantani
October 6, 2011 at 10:32 ambijoya wishes to you nd your family. great way to celebrate the festival with this exquisite sweet
Manju
October 6, 2011 at 1:01 pmmm..one of my favorite milk based sweets! 🙂
Nithya
October 6, 2011 at 1:29 pmDelicious Kalakand. Love the look of it 🙂 Tempting.
Priya
October 7, 2011 at 12:25 amHappy dussehra wishes…Beautiful kalakand, seriouly inviting..
Sadhana
October 7, 2011 at 10:35 amDelicious looking kalakand and hope you had a lovely Dussehra.
Archana
October 7, 2011 at 1:02 pmDelicious. I can almost taste it.
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Priya Yallapantula
October 7, 2011 at 4:13 pmthat kalakand looks mouth watering.
pavithra
October 9, 2011 at 12:32 amAbsolutely lovely and milk sweets are my fav…
kankana
October 10, 2011 at 4:41 pmMukhe jol asegelo! I love kalakand so much. Shubo Bijoya to you too .. Pujo kemon katlo ?
Deboshree
October 13, 2011 at 4:41 amShubho Bijoya! 🙂
I personally love milk cake. It’s one of the few things that my non-sweet-tooth likes. Thanks for the recipe.
Christy Gerald
October 13, 2011 at 4:09 pmHi,first time here.U have a yumm blog of wonderful recipe collections here.This Kalakand recipe is too good.Luv it.
diwali sweets e-book by Indus Ladies « saffronstreaks … a food and travel blog
October 18, 2011 at 8:38 am[…] Kalakand […]
Hari Chandana
October 23, 2011 at 2:31 amWowwww… looks absolutely perfect and tempting.. awesome job dear.. Thanks for the delicious recipe .. Yummy 🙂
Indian Cuisine
seemichellecook
October 23, 2011 at 11:58 amThis looks so interesting and I can only imagine how these simple yet gorgeous flavours come together after all of the reducing. I’m definitely going to try this!
saffronstreaks
October 28, 2013 at 8:56 amThank you so much everyone for your wishes . Though it takes lots of time to prepare it, it is worth takin gthe pain and enjoying this classic delicious kalakand.
Sacred fudge, an ode to Indian mithais and Diwali celebration
November 2, 2013 at 7:19 pm[…] army of mithais. Another mithai that evolved from this process of reducing the milk is called kalakand or Indian milk fudge. When milk is simply reduced to one fourth of its volume and then sweetened […]
Panchali Thakur
May 29, 2016 at 11:01 pmLooks yum and pretty original. Will surely try to make it.
Almond crust tart filled with Indian carrot pudding
October 27, 2016 at 3:56 pm[…] a chore to me rather than a celebration. Galore of homemade mithais – mawa kachori, gujiya, kalakand, laddoos, halwas etc with huge array of crackers of all shapes, sounds and lights – anar, […]
Poila baisakh menu Bengali cuisine
April 14, 2017 at 5:26 pm[…] Kalakand […]