Kalakand with ricotta cheese, 2-ingredient kalakand recipe

Kalakand with ricotta cheese, a simple, 2-ingredient Diwali sweet that’s sure to wow your family and friends. Before I go on to this miracle of a recipe, let me talk a bit about Kalakand.

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I love all milk sweets and usually don’t play favourites with them. However, Kalakand is up there in my top three favourites. I got introduced to this deliciousness while living in Hyderabad. In fact, I even remember our precise first meeting time. Work was giving out Diwali sweet boxes from Dadu’s, a popular sweet shop in Hyderabad, and one of the assorted sweets was this amazing, delicious, and melt-in-my-mouth thing called Kalakand. It was love at first bite. Now, I must say the Kalakand in Dadu’s is a bit different from Kalakand with ricotta cheese I am sharing – they use a lot of ghee and have these graded textures according to done-ness. So one part of the Kalakand would be a dark brown and the other will be pale white. I am really not sure how they do it.

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However, this super easy Kalakand recipe I am sharing tastes very much like the real deal. I got this recipe many years ago from a friend I was visiting in New York during a one month stay there. She had ordered in a lovely Thai meal and had made Kalakand for dessert. I got the recipe back then and promptly forgot to try it until this year Diwali. Well, what better time to get cracking on it.

This Kalakand with ricotta cheese recipe follows everything I believe in a recipe. It’s simple, uses very few (two, unless you want to embellish a bit) ingredients, and doesn’t need you to put very hot sugar syrup between your fingers to check for stringiness. What’s more, it also uses condensed milk, one of my favourites ingredients to make Indian sweets with. Check out Easy Diwali sweets with condensed milk.

You may also like chocolate kalakand, rasgulla recipe from scratch, apple kheer, coconut sesame ladoo.

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Kalakand with ricotta cheese

nags

Kalakand with ricotta cheese, a simple 2-ingredient Diwali sweet recipe using ricotta cheese and condensed milk.

3 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 2 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 17 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine Indian

Servings 10 squares

Ingredients

  

• 1 cup ricotta cheese 250 grams
• 1 cup condensed milk
• Chopped nuts for garnish optional

Instructions

 

• Grease a plate or baking tray with butter or ghee and keep ready
• Place the ricotta cheese and condensed milk in a pan on medium heat. I recommend using a non-stick pan and a flexible silicon spatula for the job
• Mix frequently as the mixture starts to simmer. The cheese will begin to harden and become crumbly
• Keep mixing and cooking on medium-low heat and let the mixture bubble
• The moisture will start leaving the kalakand mixture and the crumbly texture will increase
• Keep mixing occasionally and make sure you scrape down the sides of the pan with the spatula to ensure no bits are burning on the edges
• It took me about 14 mins to reach the right consistency. This will depend a lot on the moisture in your ricotta cheese and the temperature you are using to cook the kalakand
• Once the texture is crumbly mostly and there's no extra moisture in the mix, remove from heat and transfer the mixture to the greased plate or tray
• Flatten with the top of the spatula and let it cool completely
• Cut into squares and serve
• Refrigerate the remaining and serve within 2 days for maximum freshness
• You can garnish with slivered almonds (like I did), or chopped nuts, etc

Step by Step Kalakand with Ricotta Cheese Recipe

Note the texture of the ricotta cheese below. Make sure your ricotta is grainy like this (a bit like cottage cheese) in order to get the crumbly texture in the kalakand. If your ricotta is creamy, then add 1 tsp yogurt to it so that the cheese will get split naturally and give it some texture. I haven’t tried this myself but it should work.

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Grease a plate or baking tray with butter or ghee and keep ready

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Place the ricotta cheese and condensed milk in a pan on medium heat. I recommend using a non-stick pan and a flexible silicon spatula for the job

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Mix frequently as the mixture starts to simmer. The cheese will begin to harden and become crumbly

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Keep mixing and cooking on medium-low heat and let the mixture bubble

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The moisture will start leaving the kalakand mixture and the crumbly texture will increase

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Keep mixing occasionally and make sure you scrape down the sides of the pan with the spatula to ensure no bits are burning on the edges. It took me about 14 mins to reach the right consistency. This will depend a lot on the moisture in your ricotta cheese and the temperature you are using to cook the kalakand

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Once the texture is crumbly mostly and there’s no extra moisture in the mix (like in the picture above), remove from heat and transfer the mixture to the greased plate or tray

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Flatten with the top of the spatula and let it cool completely

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Cut into squares and serve. Refrigerate the remaining and serve within 2 days for maximum freshness

Additional tips and notes to make kalakand with ricotta cheese:

1. You can garnish with slivered almonds (like I did), or chopped nuts, etc
2. Add a few strands or saffron or crushed cardamom to the mix as it cooks to give it additional flavour. Personally, I prefer the fresh flavour and taste of the milk in the cheese and condensed milk
3. Add 1-2 tbsp cocoa powder to the mix to get chocolate kalakand
4. Mix in some chopped nuts if you want a bite to the kalakand
5. You can make kalakand with ricotta cheese in the microwave too. Just cook it in 2-minute increments and stir well before the next 2 minutes until the right consistency is achieved
6. You can also use crumbled or grated paneer to make this recipe. I haven’t tried it myself but the cooking time should be less since paneer (especially store-bought frozen ones) tends to be drier than ricotta cheese.

For Kalakand with ricotta cheese recipe in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Kannada, etc please use the Google translate button in the sidebar.