🍮 Desserts · Festival sweet
Shrikhand
Gujarat's strained yogurt dessert — thick, sweet, saffron-flavoured. The simplest great dessert in Indian cooking.
Gujarat's strained yogurt dessert — thick, sweet, saffron-flavoured. The simplest great dessert in Indian cooking.
Shrikhand is Gujarat's great yogurt dessert — hung yogurt drained of all liquid, sweetened with powdered sugar and flavoured with saffron and cardamom. It is thick enough to slice, smooth enough to spoon, and takes minimal cooking. The technique is almost entirely patience — the yogurt must drain for 8–12 hours to achieve the correct dense, creamy consistency. The result is unlike any other Indian dessert.
Line a colander with a double layer of muslin or cheesecloth. Pour yogurt in. Tie the cloth and hang over a bowl, or place in a strainer over a bowl in the refrigerator. Drain for 8–12 hours until the yogurt is very thick — similar to cream cheese consistency.
Yogurt is a water-in-protein gel — approximately 85% water. The draining process removes the whey (liquid portion), concentrating the protein and fat. The resulting hung yogurt (chakka) is 4–5x more concentrated than regular yogurt. 1 kg yogurt yields approximately 400–500g chakka. The straining also removes most of the lactic acid in the whey, making the chakka slightly less sour than regular yogurt.
Beat the strained yogurt with powdered sugar until smooth and creamy — 2–3 minutes with a whisk. Add cardamom powder and saffron-infused milk. Mix until uniformly coloured. Refrigerate 1 hour before serving.
Whisking the chakka incorporates small air bubbles, lightening the texture slightly from dense to creamy-smooth. Powdered sugar dissolves instantly in the yogurt without graininess — regular sugar would produce a crunchy texture. Saffron's crocin pigment distributes through the yogurt, producing the characteristic golden-yellow colour that deepens over 30 minutes as the pigment continues diffusing.