chocolate sandesh sweet – a Durga puja special bengali misti

Chocolate sandesh recipe step by step with pictures- bengali chocolate sandesh is the finest chocolaty dessert of Kolkata’s aka West Bengal’s sweet shops. Cocoa powder, soft chana, or bengali cottage cheese and sugar are the main ingredients of this delicious sweet. Durga puja, Laxmi puja, kali puja, marriage ceremony to welcoming guests this special chocolate-colored and flavored sandesh acquires its own place.

Chocolate is always high on demand among young to old and It has a huge impact on Indian aka bengali sweets or desserts too. So when people demanded to get the chocolaty taste in our bengali sandesh our bengali confectioners once again create their magic on it. Even they created many more bengali sandesh recipes on peoples demand, i.e, dry fruits sandesh including badam, pista or kaju, used fruit pulp for making sandesh with jackfruit, mango, strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, custard apple and many more.

Though this year I’ve shared many festival sweets like kalakand and rabri. Durga puja is about to come and I can’t imagine our bengali festival without any special sandesh recipe. So I’ve decided to prepare our favorite bengali sweet chocolate sandesh. I’ve presented this bengali misti as chocolate sandesh roll. However, you may shape it as your choice like, barfi or peda or laddoo too.

For making our Kolkata’s special chocolate Sandesh, first, we need to make chenna or chana by curdling the milk with lemon juice, curd or vinegar. Even you may get the three easy and simple ways of chenna recipe | “how to make chenna in three ways” from my website.

Then this bengali chana or cottage cheese or chenna will go through a good kneading method by palm heel. In this chocolate sandesh, I’ve first divided my well-kneaded chenna into two equal parts. The first part will be turned into our authentic sandesh followed by my previous recipe. Means, where soft and moist well-kneaded chenna will be first cooked in a pan with sugar and few drops of rose essence. When the sugar will be completely melted then the cocoa powder will be added to the mixture. 

And the next part firstly turned into the same bengali sandesh with little more sugar and later mixed up and cooked with cocoa powder. Here few more tbsps of sugar must be added with its ingredients than the plain sandesh recipe to remove the bitterness of the cocoa powder. 

According to bengali confectioners, cocoa powder or powdered chocolate itself can spoil the authentic taste of our bengali sondesh. So I made a little twist in this sweet and I prepare a chocolate sandesh roll to retain its authentic taste and flavor. Where the inner portion of this roll must be authentic bengali sondesh and the outer layer will be cocoa added chocolate-flavored sandesh.

If you prefer sondesh most among all Indian desserts or sweets, then may try some of my other Bengali sandesh recipes too other than this chocolate sandesh, I.e,

• Indian sankha sandesh recipe
• Chandrapuli or narkeler sandesh recipe
• Mango sandesh

Or even you may try other Indian dessert recipes from my website, i.e,

• Kalakand sweet recipe
• rabri
• gulab jamun
• doodh peda recipe

Prepare this durga puja special bengali misti or sweet chocolate sandesh at home and please let me know your valuable feedback about this homemade sondesh recipe by writing it down in the comment section below.

Today is Mahasashthi, the first day of our Durga puja, A Very Happy Durga Puja to all of my readers. May the goddess shower all the happiness to you all.

Chocolate sandesh sweet – a Durga puja special bengali misti

Prep time: 35 mins

Cook time: 15 min

Served in: 50 mins

Servings: 15 Sandesh

Course: sweet / dessert

Cuisine: Bengali / Indian

Author: Moumita Paul

Ingredients of chocolate sandesh

For making chenna or cottage cheese

• 1 1/2 liter full-fat milk
• 1 1/4 cup curd

Making of plain sandesh

• Half of total Chenna or 3/4 cup chenna
• 5 tbsp sugar
• 2-3 drops rose essence (1 tsp rose water)

For the making of chocolate sondesh

• last half of chenna (3/4 cup chenna)
• 7-8 tbsp sugar
• 4 tbsp cocoa powder

How to make chocolate sandesh recipe with step by step pictures

Making of chenna

• First, 1 1/2 liter full-fat milk in a pan on high flame, bring it to boil. Then slow down the flame to its minimum and add 1 1/4 cup of curd to it. Stir it well.

• When the milk will be curdled completely, turn off the heat.

• Pour the curdled milk through a cotton cloth or muslin cloth lined strainer. Immediately add 2 cups of water and stir it well.

• Then take all the edges of the cloth together and squeeze it well to remove excess water.

• Once the water stopped coming from it, hang it for 20-30 mins.

• After 30 mins, remove the chenna from the cloth, and kneading well with palm heel.

• When the chenna will be lump free and turned into a soft and smooth form, stop kneading more.

• Then divide the chenna into two equal parts.

Preparing Sandesh

• Put the first part of chenna in a pan with 5 tbsp of sugar and 2-3 drops of rose essence or 1 tsp of rose water.

• Turn on the heat and start cooking it together on low flame for the first 4 mins.

• Then switch off the heat and continuously stir it for 5 mins.

• After 5 mins again turn on the heat and cook it for 2 more mins with continuous stirring.

• Within this last 2 mins, must notice the chenna mixture leave the sides and bottom of the pan and turn it into a soft dough.

• After 2 mins turn off the heat and remove the dough on a plate. And let it completely cool down.

How to make chocolate sandesh

• Take the last half of the chenna in the same pan with 7-8 tbsp of sugar.

• Then turn on the heat and keep the flame to its minimum. Mix it nicely together.

• Apply the same process of first 4 mins cooking with continuous stirring. Then turn off the heat and take a break for 5 mins but stir it continuously.

• After that 5 mins, add 4 tbsp cocoa powder to it and mix it well.

• When the cocoa powder is completely mixed up with chenna mix, then turn on the heat.

• Then cook this Chenna-cocoa mix for 1-2 mins with stirring it continuously.

• During this 1-2 mins when the mixture easily leaves the pan then immediately switch off the flame. Remove the chocolate sondesh dough from the pan.

• Let it completely cool down. Until the mixture totally cools down don’t start to make sandesh out of it.

How to make Chocolate sandesh roll

• Once both dough completely cools down, Keep the plain sandesh dough on a greased butter paper.
• First make a cylinder shape with that dough, as shown in the pic. Its thickness and length depend on you.

• Then take the chocolate dough on the same sheet and make it flat first. Make sure that flat sandesh dough must get the same thickness from everywhere.

• First, place the cylindrical dough on the flat chocolate dough.

• Then slowly wrap the chocolate sheet and roll it to fully cover the plain sandesh dough. The process will be done with the help of butter paper. As shown in the pic.

• Slowly roll the cylindrical-shaped choco sandesh and turn it into a smooth and perfect roll.

• Place the roll in the freezer for 15-20 mins and let it set. When it becomes set, take it out of the freezer and cut this sondesh roll. Each sandesh should have 1/2 inch thickness and it’s ready to serve.

Tips of making best chocolate sandesh

• You can check my chenna recipe too, to know how to make chenna with lemon juice and vinegar too.
• Once the chenna starts to release its oil while cooking in the pan, you never be able to make this authentic sweet. That’s why the 5 mins interval or break and is mandatory for this recipe.
• Don’t overcook the chenna, it will release oil or clarified butter and becomes crumbly.
• Even you may prepare this sweet with fresh homemade paneer too.
• Here I have shaped in my way, you may shape it as a barfi or peda or dry fruits stuffed chocolate balls.