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This Chhena Malpua Recipe is going to add a big sparkle to your festive seasons. These soft and delicate chhena malpuas are made with fresh homemade chhena, dipped in sugar cardamom syrup and topped with nuts have a melt in your mouth texture and irresistibly delish!!

What is Chhena Malpua?

Chhena Malpua is a traditional dessert from the eastern part of India. Specifically, Odisha,Bihar and West Bengal. Even though the preparation method of Malpua varies from Odisha to Rajasthan.., my favorite is always the one that I grew up eating in Odisha. My mom would make a batter of mashed banana, whole wheat flour, sugar and paan mahuri and then deep fry them in piping hot oil.

During Diwali or for any other festivals, along with Malpuas, an array of sweets and snacks are made in each household to enjoy and celebrate with friends and families. This is the time when special dishes like Peda , Kheer , Phirni, gulab jamuns are made and distributed.

Fall kicks off few of the most awaited festivals – Durga Puja, Diwali, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Now you tell me, do you need another reason to get excited about Fall?

These Chhena Malpuas are lighter in taste and don’t feel so heavy since they are not made with mawa or condensed milk. For my non-Indian friends, Malpuas are nothing but Vegetarian mini pancakes – deep fried until light golden color and then soaked in a flavored sugar syrup. Delicious.

Ingredients used in Chhena Malpua

• Chhena or Cottage Cheese 
• Milk
• Flour (Maida)
• Cardamom Powder
• fennel seeds (optional)
• Few strands of saffron
• Baking Powder
• Ghee or oil for frying
• Finely chopped nuts to garnish and serve

Step-by-Step methods of making Chhena Malpua

Step 1 – Making Chhena for Chhena Malpua

How to make Chhena?  

• Mix together the lemon juice and water. Set aside.
• Heat the milk and just when it is about to come to a boil, switch off the heat. Stir the milk for a minute or two and then add the lemon juice water mix.
• The milk will curdle and you will see greenish whey. If it does not, then add one or two tablespoons more of lemon juice, till the whey separates.
• Strain the contents through the muslin cloth or the cheesecloth. Rinse the cottage cheese, with water, to get rid of the lemon juice from the paneer.
• Bring the ends of the cloth together. Gently squeeze to remove excess water. Set aside for half an hour.

Step 2 – Making Chhena Malpua

How to make Malpua?

• Whisk together flour, chhena, semolina, cardamom powder, fennel seeds with milk to a pourable consistency. Make sure that the batter is lump free. Also very important to keep on mind that, the batter is neither too thick nor too runny. It should be like the pancake batter
• Heat oil or ghee in a deep pan or kadhai. Once the oil is hot, reduce the flame to low. Take some batter (about two table spoons) in a small slotted spoon and gently drop into the oil.The batter will spread on its own forming a small pancake. Let the malpua cook in the low heat. If you turn up the heat, the malpua will brown from outside but stay raw from inside.

• The chhena malpua needs to be a little more than golden brown in color on both sides. (It will be crisp around the edges) Remove the chhena malpua on an absorbent sheet and then dunk them in the sugar syrup.
• Finish the whole batch this way and let the chhena malpua soak for at least two to three hours.

Step 3 – Making Sugar Cardamom Syrup for Chhena Malpua

Make the syrup by placing the sugar and water along with cardamom powder in a sauce pan. Keep stirring till the sugar is dissolved and then reduce the heat to medium. Keep boiling the syrup till one thread consistency is reached. Transfer the syrup and stir in the saffron strands. Cover the warmer with lid and set aside.

Useful tips 

you can use vinegar instead of lemon juice to curdle the milk. 

Instead of deep frying the chhena malpua, you can swallow fry them on a greased non-stick pan

You can use store bought paneer (grate them) or even ricotta cheese.

Other festive desserts you must try

Sandesh Cake

Cardamom Peda

Gulab Peda

Gulab Jamun

Phirni

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