Cham Cham Recipe is a Bengali Sweet dish prepared from Chenna where chenna is shaped into balls and is then cooked in sugar syrup. It is then stuffed with mawa and garnished with dry fruits.
Course Dessert, Side Dish, Sweets
Cuisine Bengali, Indian
Keyword Bengali Cham Cham, Cham Cham, Chom Chom
Prep Time 25 minutesminutes
Cook Time 40 minutesminutes
Passive Time 5 minutesminutes
Total Time 1 hourhour10 minutesminutes
Servings 6servings
Calories
Author Recipe by Chits
Equipment
Muslin Cloth
Deep Kadai or Pan
Strainer
Ingredients
For Cham Cham Balls:
1litreFull cream milk(or 4 cups)
2-3tablespoonVinegar or Lemon Juice
1teaspoonMaida or Corn flour
4cupsCold Water
For Sugar Syrup:
2cupsPlain Sugar or Refined White Sugar
3-4piecesGreen Cardamom Pods (Hari Elaichi)
2tablespoonRose Water or Kewra(Optional)
1tablespoonMilk
8cupsWater
For Stuffing & Garnishing:
1/4cupMawa (Khoya)
1tablespoonPowdered Sugar
4-5strandsSaffron
2teaspoonMilk
1/4teaspoonGreen Cardamom Powder
2tablespoonSliced Pistachio
2tablespoonTutti Frutti
1/4cupDesiccated Coconut
Instructions
Preparation of Chenna for Cham Cham:
Heat the Milk in a large pot under medium heat till it comes to boil.
While the Milk is boiling, keep on stirring it so that no layer is formed at the surface of the milk. Also the milk should not stick to the bottom of the pot.
When the Milk completely boils, switch off the stove and allow the milk to cool down to 80% of its initial temperature.
Now take the Lemon Juice and add equal amount of Water into it. Mix it.
Initially add 1 tablespoon of Lemon Juice into the Milk. Stir the Milk continuously with the help of spatula or spoon.
After some time, again add 1 tablespoon of Lemon Juice and stir it. You will observe that the milk starts to cuddle.
Add the remaining Lemon Juice and keep on stirring it. Stir until the boiled milk gets completely curdled to form Chenna with green coloured whey (water).
If the watery whey is not formed then add more lemon juice to the milk. After sometime you will see the greenish whey is formed.
Now take a strainer and place over a large bowl.
Place a muslin cloth over the strainer and strain the curdled milk to separate the chenna and the whey.
Next pour cold water over strained chenna and wash it so that the sourness and acidic taste of the lemon juice is removed.
Squeeze the muslin cloth to drain out the excess water from the chenna. Chenna should neither be too dry nor it should have high moisture.
Now take out the chenna from the muslin cloth and place over a plate to prepare the dough.
Slightly mash it. We will now knead the chenna along with other ingredients to prepare the Cham Cham balls.
Kneading and Preparing Cham Cham Balls:
In a large plate take the Chenna. Add Corn Flour to it.
Mix all the ingredients and knead them till it is soft and smooth. Do not add water to prepare the dough.
While kneading the dough we must keep in mind that the dough does not leave oil. As soon as you feel that oil is coming out, stop kneading it.
Now take small amount of dough and roll it to make cylindrical shaped balls. Roll it to make smooth so that there are no cracks on the surface.
Follow the same process of making the balls for the remaining dough. Keep it aside in a plate.
Preparation of Sugar Syrup:
Take a large flat pan or kadai and add 4 cups of water. Heat the Water over medium heat.
Add sugar to the boiling water and stir it till the sugar is completely dissolved.
Now add 1 tablespoon Milk to the sugar syrup. It is added to clean the sugar syrup from impurities. If you are using White Refined Sugar, there is no need to add milk into it. So skip the steps 3 to 5.
As the sugar syrup boils, the impurities start floating at the surface of the syrup.
Take out the impurities from the syrup with the help of spoon. You can also strain it with the help of muslin cloth.
At last add Green Cardamom Pods to the syrup and allow it to boil. Now we will add the cham cham balls into the boiling sugar syrup to cook them.
Cooking of Cham Cham Balls:
As the sugar syrup is boiling, add all the Cham Cham balls into the syrup.
The quantity of the balls added should be such that there is twice the space around the balls as the size of the balls.
Cover the pan with lid and cook for 5 minutes under medium to high flame. At this stage bubbles starts to form rapidly.
After 5 minutes, open the lid and turn the cham cham balls. Cover it again and cook under high flame for 10 minutes more.
After 10 minutes, you will see that the size of the cham cham balls will be double. At this time the balls should be completely cooked.
To check whether the cham cham balls are completely cooked or not, take a ball, press it and release it. If the balls regain its shape, it means it is completely cooked. Follow the same process as Rasgulla. See the image of Rasgulla below.
The other way to check is by dropping the balls into a cup of water. If the ball sinks, it means it is completely cooked. The process is similar to Rasgulla. See the image of Rasgulla below.
If the cham cham balls are not properly cooked, then boil it again for 10 minutes more.
Switch off the stove. Add Rose Water or Kewra and allow it to cool by covering the pan with the lid.
When the sugar syrup completely cools, take out the balls from the syrup. Slightly squeeze out the sugar syrup from the balls and place them in a different plate.
Preparation of Cham Cham Stuffing:
Dissolve the Saffron Strands in 2 teaspoon of Milk for few minutes.
Take a bowl and add Khoya, Powdered Sugar, Cardamom Powder and dissolved Saffron.
Mix all the ingredients uniformly with a spoon till it becomes soft.
Do not over mix or the mixture will become little soggy. Keep it aside.
Preparation of Cham Cham Sweet:
Take the Cham Cham balls and slit length wise in between till the centre of the cylindrical balls with other side connected.
Keep the desiccated coconut and the dry fruits in two separate plates.
Now take small amount of khoya stuffing and stuff it in cham cham balls. Be careful while stuffing so that it does not break from the other end.
Next roll the stuffed cham cham balls in desiccated coconut.
Garnish the Cham Cham Sweet with Pistachio and Tutti Frutti. Press it gently with your finger so that it sticks to cham cham.
In the same manner repeat the above steps for all cham cham balls. Cham Cham Sweet is ready to serve. Serve it chilled.
Notes
To cool the milk instantly, you can add a cup of cold water to the boiled milk. The milk is slightly cooled to get soft chenna. It helps in preparing soft and spongy cham cham.
You can use either of Maida or Corn Flour for preparing the dough.
The quantity of Lemon Juice should be added to the boiled milk in batches.
The amount of lemon juice required to curdle the milk depends upon the quality of the milk. Some milk requires more while some require less. If the greenish whey is not formed, add more lemon juice to it.
While boiling milk, keep stirring it continuously so that thick layer over the milk is not formed. Also the milk should not stick to the bottom of the milk or else it will burn and will change the colour of the chenna.
The milk whey left behind after the milk is curdled is very nutritious. It can be used to prepare atta dough or in dal and curries.
Adding of Kewra water or Rose water is optional. Also you can skip Green Cardamom too if you want to.
While preparing the cham cham balls we must be careful that there are no cracks on the surface of the balls or else it may break while cooking.
Mash the Chenna till is soft and smooth and there is no grain present in it. Do not mash too much so that it becomes greasy.
Stuffing should be done after the cham cham balls cools completely or else it may break while stuffing.
If you do not have Saffron at home, you can use lemon yellow or red orange natural or synthetic colours.