Ingredients

• 3 litres - whole milk
• 10 g - charolya (optional)
• 6 cardamom pods, ground
• 250 to 300 g - sugar
• a few strands - saffron in 2 tsp milk or yellow food colouring
• 1 tsp - starter yogurt

How to Make Shrikhand (Sweet Yogurt)

• Thickening the yogurt:
• Boil and cool the milk. Do not remove the top layer of cream.
• Stir it into the milk to homogenize it and set yogurt, using starter.
• When the yogurt is firmly set, follow recipe to make it into chakka.
• Empty the thick granular chakka in a bowl.
• Smooth out chakka with a large wooden spoon or spatula.
• Combining the sugar and yogurt:
• Add the sugar and mix well till it becomes creamy in texture.
• Soak saffron in a tablespoon of warm milk to release its colour and aroma.
• Mix it into the chakka and watch the shrikhand turn a wonderfully yellowy-orange, with delicate accents of darker orange seeping from the strands of saffron.
• Crush cardamom seeds in a mortar-pestle and stir them into the shrikhand, although grated nutmeg is the genuine spice required.
• Decorate the yogurt with charolya, almonds or pistachio.