Creamy Instant Pot Rasmalai

I’m totally obsessed with my Instant Pot. I will literally try to anything in there if it is going to make my life easier!

Both my hubby and I are totally in love with a great Rasmalai. Now I have to admit, I’ve only made it a handful of times, but this time I used my Instant pot and I love the results!

I’ve realised that whenever I have to boil milk, it is just so much easier doing it in the Instant Pot as for some reason, the milk doesn’t burn so easily in the IP.

I couple of things I’ve learnt along the way:

Rinse

At first I didn’t know that you should rinse the milk curds before kneading as the lemon juice/vinegar taste can still linger in the finished product.

Knead

I knew the paneer had to be kneaded until smooth, however, I didn’t at first realised how long this really should be done for – no less than 10 minutes if done by hand. The paneer dough should be super smooth after 10 minutes of kneading and shouldn’t crack when made into balls.

Squeeze

Again something else I haven’t done at first was squeezing the excess sugar syrup out. If this wasn’t done the rasmalai patties were VERY sweet and a bit claggy.

Flour

One of the very first batches I made was without any flour, however, I found that by adding half a teaspoon or so of cornflour before kneading really did make a difference in the final texture of the dessert. Anything more than this will result in an extremely dense patty.

---

The steps

Place the Instant Pot on Normal Sauté for 10 minutes. Pour the milk into the inner pot and let it come to a boil.

Once it starts to boil let it only boil for a minute before adding the lemon juice. Keep stirring until curds form and you can see the yellow whey when stirring through the milk.

Pour the curds along with the whey through a cheesecloth-lined colander (catch the whey!) and run some cold water through to rinse the curds from the lemon juice. Squeeze the cheesecloth to get all the liquid out.

Turn the cheese ball onto a clean work surface that has been sprinkled with 1/2 teaspoon of cornflour. Set the timer for 10 minutes (I just yell at Siri to do this for me) and start kneading the crumbly mess until it forms a very smooth dough.

I wanted to make 12 small patties, but you can easily make them slightly larger. Just don’t forget that they will double in size! I rolled the paneer into a long sausage about the thickness of my thumb. Cut the sausage in half and half again so you have 4 equally sized sausages. If you want your patties slightly larger, then cut these 4 pieces each in half, but if you want 12 like me, then cut each sausage in 3 equal parts.

Roll each piece into a ball and flatten slightly into discs. You could flatten it more than I did – I probably will do that next time. Let this rest whilst you quickly rinse the inner pot.

Place the sugar and water in your Instant Pot’s inner liner and press the sauté button. Allow the sugar to dissolve and let the sugar water boil for about 10 to 12 minutes before using a spoon to slip the patties into the syrup.

I change my silicone ring when cooking sweet foods just to eliminate any savoury flavours. Pop the lid on and pressure cook for 12 minutes on high with a natural release – it took about 20 minutes for mine to fully depressurise. Scoop the patties out of the syrup with a slotted spoon and let it cool on a tray.

Once the patties are cool, give them a gentle squeeze to get rid of some of the sugary liquid.

When you start the pressure cooking process, put the milk in a pot on the stove on a very low heat (I’ve put mine on setting 2 out of 9). Pour in the sugar and some cardamom seeds. Let it simmer until the milk has reduced to about 2/3’s of the original volume. Alternatively you could do this in a second Instant Pot if you have one (I’ll be sending some hints to the hubby near Christmas time…)

Once the patties are squeezed, slide them into the milk and boil for 2 minutes. Take them off the heat and leave to cool completely. Add some pistachios and sliced almonds and place in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours or overnight.

I like to garnish mine with saffron and pomegranate seeds.

---

---

Do you fancy some more milky desserts?