Ras Malai for Indian Cooking Challenge

Ras Malai, the very name sets my mouth watering. Its my favourite dessert since my childhood. I was delighted when I saw that this was the April Challenge for ICC. I have followed the recipe and process given by Srivalli to the T. She adapted it from Lavi's Blog. I tried it twice and the second time it came out good. My husband loved it too. He encouraged me to try Indian desserts more as I tend to bake cakes when he wants me to make something sweet.

Now coming to the recipe used in making this ras malai:

Ingredients:

Milk - 1.5 litres (1 litre for making paneer and 500 ml for making milk syrup.)
Vinegar- 1.5 tbsps
Water-2.5 cups
Sugar- 8 tbsp (4 for Sugar Syrup and 4 for Milk Syrup)
Saffron- 4-5 pieces
Pista-5-6 finely chopped
Maida flour- 1/2 tsp
Cardamon-1-2 (crushed)
Almond Flakes- 1 tbsp

Process:

Boil a litre of milk and let it cool. Refrigerate the milk for 12 hours. The next day or after 12 hours, remove the thick layer of skin formed over the milk. Now boil the milk, when the milk boils, add vinegar. wait for a minute or two. the paneer will start floating on top and will separate from the whey.Line a muslin over a bowl and filter the paneer and pour 2 cups of water on it, to remove the sourness of vinegar and then tie it well and let it hang on for one hour, till the whey water drops out.
After an hour remove the paneer from the muslin cloth and knead it in the same way knead the paneer, for 5 minutes atleast, till you feel it dont have much moisture content in it now add the maida flour to the paneer and make it as small balls. The balls will become double in size after putting it and boiling it in sugar syrup. so make a medium size paneer balls. I got 8 small balls from a litre of milk.
In a wide-bottomed pressure cooker, add one and a half cup of water and four spoons of sugar. Let it boil. Now when it boils, add the paneer balls one by one on to it. Let it get pressure cooked for 10 minutes in slow flame or for 2 whistles.

Now let the steam get out and open the cooker and see the double-sized paneer balls. Slightly press each  ball to emit the excess sugar syrup.
While making the sugar syrup. start making milk syrup side by side. Have 500 ml of milk in a wide bottomed vessel and let it boil and get reduced into half of the quantity. add four table spoons of sugar and mix well. Add saffron and crushed cardamom to it and mix well. Put the paneer ballS into the milk syrup. Cool it down and refrigerate.
Serve chilled with chopped pistachios and almond flakes on top.
Cheers!! Enjoy!