Milk cake recipe is an Indian sweet also known as Kalakhand, made with milk, sugar and cardamom powder. This is perfect for celebrations.
When you read the title, you might think that it is a baked cake like the hot milk cake, but no, you are mistaken, it is a milk sweet from Uttar Pradesh. Even I mistook the name for some cake when I first saw this at Nishamadhulika.
But when I saw the milk cake recipe, I immediately bookmarked it, but never got a chance to make it until now. Think of this as a cousin to kalakand. For kalakand, we cook paneer, mawa and sugar and it is set when it is soft and white in colour. But for the milk cake, milk is reduced to thick consistency like mawa, then lemon juice is added to curdle the mixture and then sugar is added and cooked until dry. So the result is a deep browned sweet, which is slightly tangy and absolutely delicious.
Just like the basundhi recipe, this tested my patience. But when compared to this basudhi was easy as it involved only one litre of milk whereas this involved reducing 2 1/2 litres of milk. I didn’t even have a large heavy bottomed pan to hold all the milk for reducing.
How to reduce cooking time
I divided the milk between two pans and reduced them to half and then combined them and proceeded. This took lesser time when compared to reducing the whole amount of milk in a single pan. But still it took nearly three hours to complete cooking this. But it was so worth the time. The sweet is let to set for 24 hours before removing it from the tin.
Resting time is really important for milk cake recipe
But as usual, I couldn’t wait and I removed it by 8 hours. So it started crumbling at the edges. I advice you to wait for 24 hours before slicing the sweet. It was extremely rich and even a small amount of the sweet made us feel so full. I refrigerated the sweet and consumed little every day.
Milk Cake Recipe – Stepwise Photos For Easy understanding
If you love Indian Milk Sweets, then you definitely need to check out my compilation of twenty Amazing Milk Sweet Recipes. Click on the image below to see the recipes.
Milk Cake Recipe
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 2.5 Litres Whole Fat Milk
- 250 gm Sugar
- 1/2 tsp Citric Acid or one lemon
- 1/2 tsp Cardamom Powder
Instructions
Procedure
- Divide milk between two heavy bottomed pan and reduce to 1/3rd.
- Now combine both and let it boil. Keep on stirring to avoid the bottom getting burned.
- Dissolve citric acid in 2 tbs of water and add it to the reduced milk.
- The milk will curdle and whey will be separated.
- Add sugar and keep on cooking until the whey completely evaporates.
- Add cardamom powder and mix well.
- Grease a 6″ cake tin with ghee and transfer the mixture to the pan.
- Press it well with the back of a spoon until it is firm.
- Set aside for 24 hours to set.
- For demoulding, place the tin on low heat for a few seconds and flip it onto a plate.
- The cake will slide out of the tin.
- Slice it up and serve.
Somebody requested me to post this recipe recently and at first, I thought it was a baked recipe and wondered why I never heard about it before. Once I learned what it was, I thought it was too tedious for my tastes but after seeing your post, I am tempted. Your milk cake looks super.
Looks super delicious ! There’s a mathura pedha or dodha pedha made similarly I think ! Hats off to ur patience and lovely series with the milk based sweets, gayathri
Milk cake looks absolutely stunning. I think this is the recipe for authentic Kalakand, though some call it as Milk Cake. I have tried once, and same as you, I had no patience and unmoulded it in few hours. Though it crumbled, it tasted awesome.
Omg, milk cake looks prefect and definitely a worth to try Gayathri though its time consuming. Bookmarking to give a try.
We have a couple of shops here which sell the best milk cakes , they are pretty highly priced , now I understand why ! I did not know that the citric acid is used , but to get that grain effect yes one would need to curdle ! Excellent milk cake , talk of patience , you are the guru .
I saw this link this morning on my FB newsfeed and thought it was a bake. Girl, you do have patience !! I don’t have patience to make Basundi from scratch and this is even more time consuming. But, I am sure it was worth all the effort. Cake looks sinfully delicious.
Thanks Gayathri for sharing this recipe. Once I heard this recipe from one of my friend but never got opportunity to prepare this as tips time consuming. Saw your post on Facebook and it reminded me of this recipe. It is not my favorite sweet but my brother-in-law love it like anything. So Thanks to you again.
This is what I call ‘sweet torture’ . Appreciate your patience.
he he I need to agree with harini.. your milk sweets are super awesome.
Absolutely delicious milk cake,you nailed it..All your milk based sweets tempted me so much..
I wasn’t expecting this for a milk cake. I thought it was going to be more like a western cake. It sounds absolutely delicious and looks like it is bought from a sweet store — yummy!!
I wish we could see a month full of your sweets. Such amazing dishes each day and this last one is a stunner!
Hats off to your perseverance and patience in making such time consuming sweets. These are absolutely delicious looking!
Wow I love this one, the texture looks stunning and what a dish!..will surely have to make it sometime..its been a sweet treat to us all this week right..
I loved this cake in childhood. You have made it just like store bought one.
Gayatri you have made a difficult recipe so easy. This cake I have been looking at of an on for the last 20 years. The fact that only I will eat it plus the recipe I had was so tedious I did not think it worth the effort.
Now you are tempting me to try making it.
Also, is it possible to make without a heavy bottomed pan? In a copper bottom pateela?
Milk burns easily, that is why using a heavy bottomed pan would help.
Just like the store bought milk cake that we get in Delhi.
at my office canteen there is a counter for sweets and they excel in this cake recipe…their top is slightly caramelised because they set the cake in the same vessel that they cook…the recipe u have shared is for keeps
I definitely have to make this using the citric acid crystals. I have always heard that it is what gives the milk sweet the granular texture, but I was scared to make it. Now that you have made it and posted, I don’t have to fear further.
Very Nice Recipe. The posts are very helpful, which are described with step wise photos. Thanx.
Hi! I just made this cake. Can i leave it out for 24 hours, to set or do I need to keep it in the fridge?
Leave it at room temp. No need to refrigerate.
looks so delicious. I loved this cake recipe. thanks for sharing this cake recipe. your dish pictures so beautyful.
How do you know when milk has reduced to 1/3? Is there a way to be sure? I know if its not properly reduced milk will curdle and seperate! Please help.
Just note down the sides where the original portion of milk is. Then you can easily estimate one third.
What a great recipe to follow. Thank you so much for the easy to follow instructions. My son loves milk cake and with this lockdown,.it’s been impossible to meet his craving. Mine didn’t set as well as yours and was a bit crumbly but tasted yumm and the little guy is super happy. Thank you!
That is awesome. Thanks for trying!
How to get the brown color? I tried the recipe as-is and it tastes great, however, it’s not brown.
The more you cook the milk, it definitely becomes brown because of the caramelizing of milk solids and sugar. Not sure why yours didn’t change colour.
Hi, can you explain the first step? I don’t exactly understand it. How do you reduce the milk to 1/3rd?
You need to keep stirring on heat until milk starts reducing.
This recipe looks amazing. Can I use low fat (1%) milk instead of whole milk? How long is the shelf life once the recipe is complete? Does citric acid work better than lemon juice?
I am not sure how effective low fat milk will be. As we are reducing, the mawa in the mixture is what becomes the milk cake. With low fat milk, the amount of mawa you get will be very less comparatively. So the final dish may not resemble this and the proportion also may not work. Citric acid and lemon juice are inter changeable. They both do the same thing, so you can use whichever you have.
Hi Gayathri,
I tried out this recipe over the weekend. I did not have citric acid and hence, I diluted a whole lemon in 2 tablespoons of water and did it in the same way. However, my end result was a sticky and chewy sort of fudge. It did not hold its shape either. I was a little disappointed. What do you think could have gone wrong? Does the milk take a long time to curdle after adding the lemon juice in it as mine did not look like it was curdling till some time later? Or should I have used the lemon without diluting it?
Do let me know.
Thanks Much,
Indhu
You should have added more lemon juice. Citric acid is very strong, than lemon juice. So when we substitute, the quantity should be more.
Thanks a lo for the reply. I used a whole lemon. How much more should I use? In this case, should I dilute the lemon juice or just use it as it is?
Pls let me know.
Thanks Much,
Indhu
Use the lemon juice as it is. No need to dilute. Add juice until the milk curdles. The amount added depends upon the size and tartness of the lemon.
Thanks a lot for your reply. Sorry this came in late. Will try again and let you know 🙂
Hi there! I tried this recipe to the T today and was left with a thick, moist substance. Had to put way too much lemon in for it to curdle. In the end the whey didn’t evaporate so I gave up. I was at it for hours. What could have been done for this to not happen?
Sometimes, it is the type of milk. I have faced such issues with packed milk. Direct from a dairy is better.
I cut the recipe in half and made it last night. It worked out great. Will taste it today. Used lemon juice instead of the citric crystals.
Great. Let me know how it goes.