Rose Rasgulla Recipe – Rose Rasgulla inspired by thoughts of rasgulla and rose flavour, forming a delicious soft and spongy rasgulla. Original or traditional rasgulla in its own right is massively popular. Spongy rasgulla is one of the core characteristics of a good rasgulla. Learn how to make soft spongy rasgulla here in this easy ras gulla recipe, and take it to next level by creating a fusion version – Rose rasgulla.
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Rasgulla
Soft spongy sweet out of curdled milk (cheena) is rasgulla. It’s also spelled as ras gulla. As the name suggests it has two parts, ras and gulla. Ras = Juice and Gulla = Ball in hindi.
Rose Rasgulla
Giving the traditional rasgulla a twist with rose flavour, these rose ras gullas are must try this season. With the flavourful rose taste and juice oozing out of soft spongy rasgulla, you definitely have a winning dessert on the table.
Ever since I published my rose rasmalai recipe, I was thinking of sharing rose rasgulla recipe too on the blog, however covid occurred and it meant, home schooling and less time to spend on blogging. I shared rose rasgullas on my Instagram in Oct, near Diwali, and now its Holi, and I have finally got around to share the detailed recipe.
These rose rasgullas are next level of traditional rasgulla and massive hit with my kids. Aadya, my daughter, adores the color, while Agastya, absolutely loves the soft spongy sweet rasgullas. More the reason, I have made these ras gullas, a few times now at home.
One of the challenge one faces while making rasgulla at home is to get the softness and sponginess of rasgulla. Rasgulla is made from chenna, and success of good rasgulla will largely depend on factors like, how chenna is made, how rasgulla balls were cooked, etc.
Rasgulla vs Rasmalai
Both rasgulla and rasmalai have striking similarity. Both of these are desserts and from eastern part of India. Chenna is used to prepare both of these, however rasgulla and rasmalai vary widely in the way these are prepared and how these taste.
You cook chenna balls in sugar syrup to make rasgulla, however for rasmalai, chenna balls are immersed in thickend saffron milk (rabdi). Rasgulla has the taste of spongy balls with pure sugar syrup. Rasmalai on other hand, has very much saffron milky flavour.
Things to keep in mind – Rose ras gulla recipe
- Use a wide mouth pan / cooker for making rasgulla. Rasgulla balls will expand when dropped in boiling sugr syrup, if the pan is small, it will lead to cramped rasgullas in the pan. Give enough space for ras gullas to boil.
- Rasgulla will expand in size when boiling, hence do not make the balls to big, unless you want really big rasgullas.
- Knead the chenna to smooth texture. Over kneading will make chenna balls sticky and balls may not even expand on cooking in the sugar syrup.
- Add rasgulla balls in sugar syrup, when the sugar syrup is boiling hot.
- Keep the flame on high while rasgulla is being cooked.
- Moisture in chenna should be limited, if there is whey left in chenna, it will adversely impact rasgulla. Chenna should be moist and have no dripping whey from it. If there is water presence in chenna, then rasgulla balls will crumble during cooking, or won’t swell in size.
- Use organic color, to get the vibrant pink look.
- Make rasgullas in advance, normally a day in advance. When rasgulla balls are kept soaked in syrup for 24hrs, these balls soak in sugar syrup nicely and becomes super juicy.
- Make sure you don’t make thick syrup. If that happens then rasgulla will not come out perfect. You would need to wait till the sugar dissolves in water.
Ingredients for Rose Rasgulla
- Full Fat Milk – Use full fat milk for good chenna.
- Sugar – Sugar is required for sugar syrup to make rasgullas sweet.
- White Vinegar – Vinegar helps in curdling milk to form chenna
- Rose Water – This offers the rose flavour to rose rasgullas
- Rose / Pink color – To get the stunning pink color, I have used organic pink color.
Method to make rose rasgulla
The recipe of pink rasgulla is divided into two parts
Making chenna from milk
- Start by taking a heavy bottom pan and adding of milk in it. Keep stirring the milk and switch off after the boil, subsequently let the milk cool down.
- Curdle the milk with vinegar and keep stirring. Add ice to the milk once milk curdles, this process helps in cooling down milk and curdled milk will stick together to form big chunks, something like mini ice-bergs on milk.
- Extract away all the water aka whey from curdled milk. You may use this whey in cooking other things as it has high protein content.
- Now we need to wash this curdled milk under water to remove any sourness from vinegar, and we need to make sure that all the water is extracted away from chenna. Put the chenna in a muslin cloth and extract the water by squeezing, subsequently, hang the cloth with chenna in it, for all the water to drip away.
- Chenna should be little granular and dry in appearance for rose rasgulla.
Recipe for making and cooking chenna balls
- Add 2-3 drops of food colour to the paneer and knead it with the help of your palm for 10-12 minutes and make a soft and smooth dough of it.
- Now take one tablespoon of chenna mixture and knead again and make a round ball of it, and do the same with rest of chenna mixture.
- Put 2 cups of sugar with 5 cup of water in a pressure cooker on gas for a boil and now add remaining food colour and mix. Once it begins to boil, add these balls to it and put the lid on. When the pressure cooker whistles once, reduce the flame, and keep the cooked on sim for roughly 15 minutes.
- Now open the cooker after its pressure is released, the balls should have doubled in size.
- Take out all the balls gradually and give the balls a little squeeze to extract the excess sugar syrup, subsequently keep the balls in cold water for 30 mins. Doing so, stops the balls from overcooking.
- Continue cooking the left over sugar syrup for 10 more minutes and then let it cool down. Once the syrup is cooled, add rose water and gently put the balls again in it taking out balls from water.
- Keep rasgullas in fridge and serve them chilled.
These rose rasgullas are
- Scrumptious in taste and beautiful in look
- Great fusion Indian dessert
- Suits anyone on gluten-free diet
- One of the best dessert option, which you can make in advance
Storage
Keep these rasgullas in refrigerator and have shelf life of 3-4 days.
Serving suggestion
Serve these rasgullas cold, immersed in sugar syrup, as part of dessert menu.
Recipe card
Rose flavour Rasgulla
Ingredients
- 1.5 litre Full Fat Milk
- 2 Cup Sugar
- 2 tbsp White Vinegar
- 1 tbsp Rose Water
- 6 drop Rose/Pink colour
Instructions
Making paneer / chenna
- First of all take a heavy bottom pan and pour 1.5 litres of milk in it. Put the pan on medium heat and let it boil, stirring in between. After the first boil comes, switch off the heat and keep the milk for 10 minutes to cool down.
- Now add vinegar to the milk, whilst stirring the milk. Once milk curdles completely (it will take 1-2 minutes), add 8-10 cubes of ice to it. This will help in cooling down the temperature of milk and curdled milk will combine together to form big chunks.
- Strain this on a strainer lined with Muslin cloth. You can keep the strained water(whey) to add in your curries or to knead flour as it is a very good source of protein.
- Now wash this curdled milk with the running water under tap for 8-10 minutes. This helps in removing the sour taste due to vinegar. Gather the muslin cloth from all the corners and squeeze the extra water gently. Don't squeeze hard otherwise the curdled milk will also come out with water.
- Hang this for 30 minutes so that extra water present will also drop down. Now take out the curdled milk onto a plate. Your paneer (chenna) is ready. This would be little granular and dry in appearance.
Recipe for making and cooking chenna balls
- Add 2-3 drops of food colour to the paneer and knead it with the help of your palm for 10-12 minutes and make a soft and smooth dough of it.
- Now take one tablespoon of mixture and knead again and make a round ball of it. Repeat the above process and make the balls of all the mixture. In the end you will have around 17 – 20 balls.
- Put 2 cups of sugar with 5 cup of water in a pressure cooker on gas for a boil. Add remaining food colour and mix. Once it begins to boil, add these balls to it and put the lid on. After the pressure cooker whistles once, simmer the flame, and keep it on sim for around 10-15 minutes.
- Now open the cooker after its pressure is released, the balls would have doubled in size.
- Take out all the balls one by one and giving them a little squeeze to release the extra sugar syrup and keep them in cold water for half an hour. This stops the balls from overcooking.
- Cook the left over sugar syrup for 10 more minutes and cool it down. Once the syrup is cooled, add Rose water and gently put the balls again in it taking out balls from water.
- Keep rasgullas in fridge and serve them chilled.
Notes
- While making rasgulla, kneading part is very important, if it’s not kneaded well can lead to hard or breaking rasgulla in syrup.
- Make sure you don’t make thick syrup. If that happens then rasgulla will not come out perfect. You would need to wait till the sugar dissolves in water.
Nutrition