Chocolate Sandesh

          Today is a special day at Aromatic Cooking, it was this day one year back.., yeah you guessed it right, it's the 1st Blog Anniversary. I can't believe it's been so long, it was an unplanned beginning, but an enjoyable journey. At this point, I can't thank enough my blogger friends for their encouraging comments and not forget to mention their wonderful blogs from where I get the inspiration to keep going. I should also thank my family, especially my husband and daughter for putting up with my delicious (sometimes disastrous) experiments. I know I have to work still harder to make the blog even more appealing but I'll be also equally enjoying doing it. So today, to celebrate this big day, I have made some Chocolate Sandesh. It turned out really good, my daughter who's not a big fan of Indian sweets, liked this because I had made it a chocolate one. If you like milk sweets and like chocolate, then do give this a try..

Need To Have

• Milk - 1 litre or 4 cups
• Curd - 8 to 10 tablespoons
• Caster Sugar - 8 tablespoons
• Cocoa Powder - 2 teaspoons

Method

          Bring the milk to a boil, start adding the curd, when the milk starts curdling, stop adding and switch off. Now strain the milk solids in a cotton cloth (not too thick or thin). Bring the ends of the cloth together to form like a sac, squeeze out as much liquid you can. Then hang it from a faucet or door knob for about 1/2 an hour.

          Remove the milk solids (paneer/Indian cottage cheese) from the cloth, I had a little more than a cup, take 1 cup and knead it well for 5 minutes. Now add the sugar and the cocoa powder.

          Knead  it for another 3 minutes, till everything is mixed in well. Now take this in a pan and put it back on the stove and keep mixing on medium heat for not more than 5 minutes. Remove and when you can bear the heat, shape them into balls and slightly flatten them. Serve it chilled, though we liked it even at room temperature. I have decorated them with some chocolate shavings.

Note
Do not cook the mixture for more than 5 minutes, lesser is better. If you leave it longer it turns crumbly and you can't shape them into balls, but of course still edible, I got it right only on my third attempt, the first 2 times I ended up with a scrambled mixture.
I have given as 8 to 10 tablespoons of curd, depending on the sourness, you'll need more or less, don't add everything at once, add little by little.
Also you can you use lemon juice to curdle, for 4 cups of milk you'll need about 4 tablespoons of lemon juice. If you are using lemon juice, then before hanging the paneer, wash it well with the cloth, by dipping the sac in a bowl of water, squeeze the water and then hang it. This will remove the lemon flavor.
I got 10 pieces with the 1 cup of paneer that I used.
Use powdered sugar if you don't have caster sugar.