Rasmalai is a favorite Indian dessert. The traditional recipe is time consuming to make and the sugar content is not keto friendly. The base ingredients are cottage cheese (paneer) and milk. With these ingredients there is an opportunity to make this dish keto friendly. This is accomplished by swapping out the sugar with a keto friendly sweetener. To overcome the challenge of the time consuming nature of the recipe, I decided to use store bought ricotta cheese and bake it to make it much easier and quicker to make this keto rasmalai. This removes the steps of curdling the milk, draining the water and making a sugar syrup when using cottage cheese (paneer).
This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something I may earn a commission.
Sweetener
I use monk fruit sweetener as it does not have the cooling effect and also does not have a negative impact on staying in ketosis. I use the Lakanto brand found in Costco, but also available at Amazon.
What is Rasmalai?
The word rasmalai comes from two words ras which means juicy and malai that means cream. The main parts of this recipe is to make the malai with ricotta cheese and the ras with almond milk and heavy whipping cream.
Keto Rasmalai Preparation Overview
Before getting started, remember to preheat the oven to 350°F and put 5 strands of saffron to soak in 1 tbsp of almond milk. Mix cardamom and monk fruit sweetener with a cup of ricotta cheese for the malai. Take a spoonful of malai and place into a spot on mini muffin tray. Repeat until all the malai is used. Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes. Do not worry when the rims of the malai start browning as it is normal and does not alter the taste. Put the malai in a flat bottomed bowl in a single layer and set aside.
Boil almond milk and heavy whipping cream on medium heat to start making the ras. Then add cardamom, saffron, monk fruit and crushed almonds and mix well. Pour the ras into a bowl lined by malai in a single layer. Refrigerate for at least an hour before enjoying. Garnish the keto rasmalai with more crushed almonds if you wish.
Equipment
- Oven
Ingredients
Malai
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- 1 tbsp monk fruit sweetener
- 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
Ras
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 3 tbsp monk fruit sweetener
- 2 tbsp almonds - chopped
- 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
- 5 strands saffron - soaked in 1 tbsp almond milk
Instructions
Malai
- In a bowl mix ricotta cheese, monk fruit sweetener and cardamom powder. Mix well
- Put a spoonful of mix into muffin pan filling slots until all malai mix is done.
- Smoothen the top of each with silicone spatula
- Bake in oven at 350°F for 20 minutes
Ras
- On a stove in medium heat bring almond milk and heavy whipping cream to a boil.
- Add saffron soaked in 1 tbsp almond milk to milk
- Add monk fruit sweetener, cardamom powder and almonds.
- Continue stirring and cook until desired thickness is reached. The longer cooked, the thicker the Ras gets.
Rasmalai
- Take the malai and line up in a single layer in a bowl
- Add the ras to the malai
- Refrigerate rasmalai for at least an hour before serving
Notes
- The baked ricotta cheese molds (malai) will brown on the edges a little bit. Do not be alarmed and is okay and does not impact the taste.
- The milk syrup (ras) gets thicker the longer you cook. If you prefer it thicker cook for a longer time and stir intermittently.
Nutrition
Let us know how this keto rasmalai recipe came out for you in the comments below.
This was delicious. After being keto for the past year, it was nice to have this desi dessert . The texture isn’t exactly like the regular ras
Malai but it comes very close. Thanks for sharing.
My malai broke may be they need a binder