Cham Cham – Fresh Cheese Dessert

Cham Cham is a popular Bengali dessert or sweet from India. It is a pure delight and melts in your mouth. It comes in different colors such as yellow, pink or white. It is prepared from fresh paneer (Indian cottage cheese) and cooked in sugar syrup. The procedure is very simple and you can make a cham cham for Diwali or any festival. Kids will love it. Enjoy the home made fresh Cham Cham and let me know your comments.

Ingredients I:

• Paneer(made from 8 cups of milk)
• Yellow food color: a pinch
• Sugar: 2 cups
• Water : 5 cups
• Cardamom pods: 4
• Saffron: a big pinch
• Rose essence : 1/2 tsp

Ingrediens II (for malai):

• Evaporated milk : 1/4 cup
• 2% milk: 1/2 cup
• Sugar: 2 tsp
• Saffron : 4 strands
• Cardamom powder : a small pinch

For Garnishing:

• Slivered Pistachios and almond: 2 tbsp
• Dry dessiccated coconut – 1/4 cup
• Saffron

Method of Preparation:

1.  Follow the instruction given in How to make Paneer? and prepare paneer.
2. Once the paneer is ready, cover the cheese cloth in a clean kitchen towel to remove the excess moisture.
3. Now transfer it on a clean work surface.
4. Knead it into a smooth, soft dough using your palm. This may take 5 minutes.
5. In between, mix the food color with 1 tbsp of water and add a little while kneading. Adjust the food color according to your need. Dough is ready.
6. Heat 5 cups of water in a wide sauce pan and add sugar. Let the sugar dissolve.
7. Make small round or oval shaped balls from the dough.
8. When the sugar water starts boiling, add ground cardamom, saffron and rose essence.
9. Leave it for a minute and add the paneer balls and close the pan with a lid and leave it for 5 minutes over medium heat.
10. After five minutes, remove the lid and check the paneer balls. It must be doubled in size.
11. Remove from heat and set it aside.  It will be spongy when hot and then comes to the right consistency at room temperature.
12. Cham cham is ready.

Preparation of malai or sweet cream:

1. In a thick bottomed pan, add milk and evaporated milk and let it boil at medium temperature.
2. Stir continuously till it becomes creamy and a little thick. Now add saffron, sugar and cardamom. Mix well.
3. Remove from heat.

Presentation:

1. Remove the cham cham from sugar syrup and let it rest for 15 minutes.
2. Roll them in  desiccated coconut and garnish with almonds.
3. Or you can add some malai or sweet cream over the cham cham and let it absorb it for a few minutes and then add some more cream over it again and garnish with pistachios and saffron.
4. Or you can just garnish with pistachios.
5. Cham Cham has to be refrigerated. It stays upto a week.

I would like to enter the recipe to Krithi’s Serve it Festival Potluck.