What is Chum Chum

Chomchom, cham cham, or chum chum (Bengali: চমচম) is a traditional Bengali sweet, popular throughout the Indian subcontinent. The sweet comes in a variety of colours, mainly light pink, light yellow, and white. Generally, it is coated with coconut or mawa flakes as a garnish.

The basic ingredient of chum chum is milk. It is made by curdling milk to make chena or paneer and then shaping to a desired cylindrical shape. These are then cooked to light sugar syrup for hours.

Basic difference between Chum chum and Rasgulla

The procedure to make chum chum is almost the same as rosogolla, another famous Bengali sweet. Rasgulla or Rasogulla are round in shape whereas chum chum is generally oval-shaped. For rasgulla, the chenna balls are cooked in sugar syrup till they double in size and are ready to be served. Rasgullas are always served with some light sugar syrup.

Chum chum are also cooked in light sugar syrup, but for a much longer period than the rasgulla.Henxe the colour of the chum chum slightly changes from white to a light caramel colour. They are generally coated with dry milk (khoya) or dry coconut. Chum chum is always served without sugar syrup.

What is Malai Chum chum

The chum chum is also made with different types of stuffings, usually khoya which is dried milk., However, you can stuff anything you want as long it’s sweet and tastes good. I stuffed them with a mixture of dry milk and malai/cream. And hence the name is malai chum chum. It’s not a very difficult recipe and if you follow all the steps showing below, I am sure these sweets will be perfect with a spongy and soft texture. I flavoured chum with kewra and saffron which goes very well with this sweet.

Recipe

• Preparation time: 45 min
• Cooking time: 1 h 45 mim
• Serves: 12medium-sizeded chum chum
• Difficulty level: medium

Ingredients for chum chum

• 2-litre full-fat fresh milk
• 200g curd (I used plain yoghurt)
• 2 teaspoon Vinegar
• 2 teaspoon Maida/All purpose flour
• 1/4th teaspoon Cardamom powder
• 1 pinch Baking powder

Ingredients for stuffing

• 3 tablespoon of Milk powder
• 2 tablespoon of fresh Cream
• 1 tablespoon of sweetened Condensed milk
• 1 tablespoon of warm Milk
• Few Saffron strands

Ingredients for Sugar syrup

• 3 cups Sugar
• 8 cups of Water+ more as required
• 2 Cardamom pods
• 1 teaspoon of Kewra water

For garnishing

• Crushed Pistachios
• Saffron strands

Procedure

Heat 2 litre of fresh milk in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to boil.

Stir in 1 cup/200 g of beaten plain yoghurt. Remove from heat. Wait for a couple of minutes so that milk curdles and the whey completely separates from the milk solids.

I also used 2 teaspoons of plain white vinegar to completely separate the whey from the cheese. If your milk curdles well then don’t use vinegar.

When whey separates from the milk solid completely, drain in a muslin cloth to cleanse the whey.

Rinse the chena(milk solids) under running tap water nicely so that sour taste and smell of vinegar completely go off.

Tie the cloth with chena to make a “potli” or parcel and squeeze out excess water. Next, hang the potli with chena for 15 minutes so that any excess water left in the chena drops out. It is necessary to eliminate excess water from chena to make the sweet perfectly. But don’t hang the chena for too long as a little moisture is necessary to make soft chum chum.

In the meantime make the sugar syrup. For that add in 3 cups of sugar to a big vessel.

With that add-in 8 cups of water and bring to boil. Also, add in 2 cardamom pods.

When sugar dissolves completely, remove from heat.

After 15 minutes take out the chena to a dish. Chena should be crumbled and little moist in texture. Add in 2 teaspoons of all-purpose flour or maida,1/4th teaspoon of cardamom powder and a pinch of baking powder.

Start kneading the chena with your palm to make them smooth.

Knead for about 10 minutes or until your hand comes out clean. You have to make a smooth but little greasy dough. Be careful not to over-knead the chena which may lead to chewy rasgulla. Knead as long as the chena start separating from the dish and hand.

Divide the dough into 12-13 equal portions.

Take each portion and roll between your palms to give desired shape. I made oval shape slight flat sweets. You can give them cylindrical shape also. Bes sure that they are crack free.

Reheat the syrup and when the syrup comes to roaring boil, place the sweets one by one to the syrup.

Note that the vessel should be big enough so that the sweets get enough space to swell.

Cover and cook in sugar syrup for 1/2 an hour in medium high heat. Dont remove the cover in between. The sweets will expand during cooking to double. If you open the lid, the temperature of syrup may goes down and it will effect the sweets.

After 1/2 an hour remove the lid. You can see the sweets are now double in size. Oh! I think I should use a bigger vessel as my sweets expand to touch each other and that effect their shape. But I am happy to see the size of the sweets.

In this time the syrup will be little thick. We have to cook them for 1 more hour. But they should be cooked in light sugar syrup to avoid them to become hard. So add in 1 cup of boiling water to the vessel and continue to cook in medium heat. No need to cover the lid this time.

Like this cook them a total 1 hour. Add boiling water in between so that syrup won’t become thick. Also add in kewra water or any other flavour you like. Saffron also goes well with chum chum. Don’t try to stir the sweets, rather swing the vessel 2 -3 times in between for even cooking.

After one hour of cooking remove from heat and set aside for 5-6 hour or overnight.

After resting time , take out the sweets from sugar syrup and place them to a dish.

Size of my chum chum become triangle 😁😁. No worry, quite interesting shape! The texture are so good with soft and spongy.

Make a stuffing by mixing 3 tablespoon of milk powder with 2 tablespoon condensed milk and 2 tablespoon of fresh cream.

Soak few saffron strands with 1 tablespoon of warm milk and add in to the stuffing. This step is optional. You can avoid using saffron. Instead any flavour can be used.

The malai stuffing should be thick paste like consistency so that you can stuff them nicely. You can keep the stuffing in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. This will help to handle them nicely during stuffing.

Cut each sweet horizontally to make cavity. Don’t cut the sweet completely. From one edge, cut through the sweet upto other edge leaving one edge without cutting.

Fill some malai mixture to each sweet and place to a cup cake or sweet liner. Garnish with crushed pistachios and saffron strands. You can.also roll them with dry milk crumbs or coconut crumbs.

Similarly make all the malai chum chum and garnish as you like.

Delicious, spongy and soft malai chum chum are ready to serve now.

They are perfect sweets to enjoy during festivals like diwali. Your family will and friends will love them for sure.