Learn how to make bengali sweet chhanar misti sandesh recipe with step-by-step pictures. Sandesh is a soft & moist yet dry bengali sweet prepared by cooking fresh chenna or chhana (Indian ricotta cheese) with the perfect ratio of sugar, cardamom powder, and rose water. Sandesh is one of the most popular sweets in Bengali cuisine. This sweet was invented in Bengali (West Bengal including Kolkata and Bangladesh). Like other Bengali sweets, this dish can not be made without its special ingredients chhana or chenna. This chenna sweet is mainly used to welcome our guests to offer God in different pujas or for celebrating any occasions at our home.
While making this bengali sweet, I used my own trick to make it perfect. Firstly, in this recipe, I’ve cooked the chenna mixture (kneaded chhana+powdred sugar+cardamom powder+rose water) two times with a perfect interval. That’s why, this recipe looks a little tricky, but trust me this trick will help you to get an authentic taste of our bengali sandesh. And secondly, I’ve added little rose water in this sondesh recipe, as bengali confectioners do, which adds more flavour to this bengali sweet.
Sandesh, which we Bengalis pronounce as sondesh / shondesh, is a traditional and authentic sweet of Bengal. It was first invented by Bengali confectioners. Like other Indian festivals, any Bengali festivals such as Durga Puja – Poila boishak – Bhaiphonta (Bhaiduj in Hindi) are also incomplete without sweets and especially, bengali sondesh is one of them. It has a huge admirer among Bengalis, though nowadays it got its worldwide fame.
Generally, in West Bengal two types of sandesh are popular for ages, i.e, norom paker sondesh (soft & juicy) , the other one is kora paker sondesh (dry & hard). And you know, Bengali norom paker soft & juicy sandesh is more popular among people than our kora paker dry & hard sondesh. Basically, nature of Bengali sondesh depends on its cooking timing, whereas norom (soft) paak er sondesh is made by cooking the chhana for a less time to keep its moisture in and remain it soft. There, kora (hard) paak er sondesh is prepared by cooking the chhana for little bit more time to make it little hard.
As most of the Indian, except Bengali, love soft & juicy sondesh that’s why norom paker sandesh is popular among people outside West Bengal / Kolkata. Though nowadays, our bengali confectioners have invented some different types of shondesh recipes, i.e, ice cream sondesh, strawberry sondesh, bhapa sondesh, rose sondesh, kesar sondesh and many more.
Here I gave this sandesh a conch (shankh in bengali) shape with a wooden conch shaped mould as bengalis love this shape, give it a shape of your choice. Even you can use any sondesh mould of your choice to make these bengali sweet. Shape it up with a mould or just make it like we shape our Indian peda, that doesn’t matter only the taste matters, right?
You may check my other bengali sandesh recipes
bengali chandrapuli or coconut sandesh recipe
Even check indian sweet recipes as well,
If you want to prepare any bengali sweet like this recipe, can check my chenna recipe | how to make chenna and khoya recipe or mawa recipe.
Try this authentic bengali misti at home and let me know how this chhanar sweet worked, did you really enjoy it or not, by leaving a comment in the comment section below.
How to make bengali sweet chhanar misti sandesh recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lit full-fat milk+1 cup curd or tok doi (for making chenna)
- 10 tbsp powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
- 1 tsp rose water
- 5-6 pistachios
Prep time: 12 mins
Cook time: 7 mins
Served in: 1 hr 20 mins
Servings for: 8-9 people
Course: dessert / sweet
Cuisine: Bengali
Author: Moumita Paul
Instructions (with step by step pics)
First step – Making perfect chenna / chhana
- First, take 1 cup curd (thin) or 3/4 cup thick curd in a bowl and beat or whisk it well with a fork or whisker to make a smooth and liquid form of it. Add 1/4 cup of water for the thick curd. And mix it well with the water.
- Now, take a colander or strainer, fix it on the mouth of a medium bowl, put the cotton cloth or cheesecloth or muslin cloth on the colander.
- Then take a medium saucepan, add 1 ltr whole cow milk or full-fat milk or full cream milk to it.
- Place the pan on medium heat, when the milk will start to get boiling, turn off the heat.
- Then stir the milk continuously for 15-20 times and add the well-beaten curd to it. And gently stir the milk to mix it well with the curd.
- When milk will start to curdle, you can see the water will start separating from the milk.
- When you see a greenish whey or greenish water (as shown in the pic), then immediately pour the curdled milk into a colander lined with the cotton cloth or cheesecloth or muslin cloth (which we made it ready before).
- Then gently stir the Chenna by adding 2-3 cups of water to stop its cooking process which will continuously go on if it’s hot enough.
- In this way, when the chenna reduces its heat, then take all the edges together (all the edges of cotton cloth) and make a pouch with it (as shown in the pic).
- Then squeeze the mouth of this pouch (don’t squeeze or press the other parts of this pouch) to remove the greenish whey out of the chenna (as shown in the pic).
- When the continuous flow of whey will get stopped and it will start dripping and only drops of whey will come out of the chenna, then stop squeezing.
- Remove the all the edges of the cotton cloth and twist its edges from both sides. ( as shown in the pic). And then tightly make a knot with the twisted edges. (as shown in the pic).
- Now make a handle with the end portion of the edges (as shown in the pic). And then hang the pouch with its handle in a hook or mouth of the kitchen tap. (it shouldn’t keep in touch with water).
- Now it’s waiting time, hang it for 30 mins. And after 30 mins remove the cotton cloth to take out the soft perfect chenna from it.
- If you don’t want to make chenna from curd then check my chenna recipe to make chenna with lemon and vinegar too.
Second step- Kneading chenna
- First, grind the sugar and then green cardamom (elaichi)together to make the fine powder of it. Sieve it both to make a lump free fine powder.
- After 30 mins, place the chenna / chhana / ricotta cheese on a plate and start kneading it with your palm heel as shown in the pic.
- Keep kneading the chenna / chhana for 10 mins to make it soft.
Third step – Cooking chenna/chhana
- Then take a pan, place kneaded chhana, 10 tbsp powdered sugar and 1/2 tsp cardamom powder to it.
- Mix all the ingredients together well with a spatula.
- Now lastly add rose water to it, mix it well with the kneaded chenna+powdered sugar+cardamom powder mix in the pan.
- Now turn on the heat and keep the flame on its lowest mode. As high heat can quickly make the chenna dry and crumbly.
- Cook the chenna+powdered sugar+cardamom powder+rose water mix for 5 mins in the pan and stir it continuously while cooking.
- After 5 mins turn off the heat and don’t remove the pan from the cooktop.
- Here you can notice sugar got melts and chenna is liquifying, soft and sticky too. And you can’t form sondesh sweet out of it.
- Now evenly spread the chenna in the pan and leave it for 10 mins.
- After 10 mins chenna won’t be too soft and sticky. That means when chenna mixture will cool down it will start getting dry. So the sweet chenna mix is quite dried up.
- If then also you feel the chenna mix is too moist or soft, then turn on the heat for one more time. And keep the flame on lowest mode as before.
- Then cook the chenna for another 2 mins and keep stirring it continuously. Just after 2 mins switch off the flame. And this time, remove the pan from the cooktop.
- Spread the chenna evenly in the pan once again and leave it for another 10 mins.
Fourth step – Giving Sandesh Shape
- After 10 mins your chenna mix is ready to shape it up as sondesh. Now divide the chenna mix into 8-9 lemon sized balls and slight press it down to give it a easy shape as we prepare Indian peda. Your peda shaped sandesh sweet is ready.
- Take a plate, grease with little ghee and put all the peda shaped chenna sondesh on it. Garnish this sweet with few sleeves of pistachios.
- Now store it in the refrigerator for at least 1 hr, to get the sweet shop like firmness. But don’t store it for a long time and must finish it in 2 days to keep it remain soft, juicy and fresh.
- If you are using moulds, take the mould (as I take wooden sankha or conch mould), grease its inner portion with little ghee first. And place a few sleeves of pistachios in the mould. As shown in the pic.
- Then make one lemon sized ball from the sweet chenna mix, place it in the mould(as I put in my wooden mould). Slightly press down the chenna to get that perfect shape of the moulds. And chenna will get the shape of the sandesh mould as I mine get the shape of sankha.
- Bengali chenna sweet sandesh or sondesh is ready. Refrigerate this sweet for at least 1 hr to get the shop like exact firmness.
Tips
- While making this bengali sondesh, time is the most important factor to make this sweet perfect. If you cook it more than the exact time, then chenna will get crumbly and you can’t make sandesh with it.
- As this sondesh is made of pure chenna (means no mix-up of maida or rice flour), it doesn’t get the exact firmness like a sweet shop from the beginning. Refrigerate it or simply keep it out for few hours to get that firmness.
- Use wooden or plastic any mould that you have around. For using the mould, put the mould into the refined oil or ghee for about 24 hours before using it. Otherwise, sandesh can not get the perfect shape of the mould, even this sweet may break while removing from the mould.
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