Baked Rasgulla...the traditional Bengali sweet with a twist

Everyone of you reading this, I'm sure, is familiar with Rasgullas. Or rather, roshogolla as we Bongs would say. Our traditional sweet, which is the king of all sweets. Now, the name Baked Rasgulla got you thinking, right? What came to your mind? Oh! This must a baked version of those rasgullas. These must have been just baked, but they won't be as good as the traditional method of making rasgullas. Just my thoughts. But, nah! This isn't a method of making rasgullas, though the name would convincingly indicate that. This a sweet dish, with a twist. This is a little beyond the rasgullas.

Before getting down to the recipe, I have to mention Sankranti, which is just a couple of days away from today. As a tradition, Bengalis prepare an assortment of sweets on this day; all winter delicacies. Like, patishapta pithey, doodh puli, ranga alur puli pithey or my personal favourite, the payesh. I would also recommend the mishti aloor pantua, again a favourite.

This Sankranti I won't be making any of the above, even though tradition calls for it. I am little disinterested in the regular sweet dishes now. Therefore the Baked Rasgullas can give the change I am looking for. These are made with the regular store bought rasgullas. You just have to pour a paneer spread over them and bake. That's it. These will be ready in about 30 minutes. Do I still need to say how heavenly they taste?

I also realised that this is a considerably unhread of sweet dish. Google search revealed just one site. And when I asked around, I got the obvious replies. Hardly anybody had ever heard about it. I had this recipe with me since a long time but never even made it once. But yesterday when a friend asked about Baked Rasgullas on her facebook page, it suddenly struck me that I must hunt for the recipe and get started. Then, I fell in love with these.

Baked Rasgullas

Ingredients

Rasgullas, 10 pcs.
Paneer (Cottage Cheese), 200 gms, crumbled
Nolen/Notun/Khejur Gur (liquid date palm jaggery), 4 tbsp.
Condensed Milk, 2 tbsp.
Milk, 1 cup
Saffron (optional), a few

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200° C.


2. Blend paneer, nolen gur, milk and condensed milk really well until very smooth. Mix the saffron, if using.


3. In a shallow baking bowl, arrange the rasgullas. Spread the blended paneer mixture evenly on top. Cover with aluminium foil.


4. Bake for about 18 to 20 minutes in your preheated oven. Serve.

Now, a little information about the Nolen Gur I mentioned in the recipe. Nolen Gur, or Notun Gur (meaning "new jaggery") or Khejur Gur in available and very popular in Bengal during the winter months. This liquid jaggery is utterly delicious and irresistible. And as Sankranti approaches, various Bengali sweets will be made in every household with this nolen gur. Now, as the recipe uses nolen gur which will be unavailbe during the other months, we can substitute it with an equal amount of condensed milk. But, now when you can lay your hands on nolen gur, don't miss it.