Rasmalai for Indian Cooking Challenge

I was excited to hear about April's Indian Cooking Challenge at the same time I was afraid to try Rasamalai for the first time. I have always enjoyed rasagulla and rasamalai and have never even thought of making it from scratch at home. I have seen various versions using ricotta cheese but this time I decided to make it from scratch. For the first time I made paneer at home. It was so delightful and satisfying to make your own paneer. Gives the same feeling when I bake my own bread :)
This recipe is adapted from Lavi's recipe. Thanks Valli for the challenge.

Ingredients

Milk - 3 litres or 3/4 gallon( 2 litres for making paneer and 1 litre for making Rasa/Milk syrup)
Vinegar/Lime juice- 3 tablespoons
Water-5 cups
Sugar- 16 tablespoons( 8 for Sugar Syrup and 8 for Rasa/Milk Syrup)
Saffron- 8 pieces
Pistachios-10 finely chopped
All Purpose Flour/Maida - 1 teaspoon
Cardamon-2 (crushed)

Directions
Preparation of rasamalai takes place in the following steps:

• Preparation of paneer
• Preparation of sugar syrup
• Preparation of ras/milk syrup for rasamalai

Check out the first step of preparation of paneer here.
Once the paneer is ready, add the maida/allpurpose flour and knead the paneer thoroughly. Make small sized balls. Once the balls get cooked in the sugar syrup they almost double in size. So try making small balls. 2 litres of milk should give 14 to 15 balls.

Preparation of sugar syrup

In a pressure-cooker, add three cups of water and eight tablespoons of sugar and bring it to a boil. Slowly, add the paneer ball's one by one to the sugar syrup. If the paneer is kneaded well, it should not break at this point. Pressure cook for 10 minutes in low flame or for about 2 whistles.

Once the pressure and steam is released, open the cooker. The paneer balls should have doubled in size. Slightly press each ball with a back of spoon to take out the excess sugar syrup.

Preparation of rasa/milk syrup for rasamalai
When the sugar syrup gets done, start making the milk syrup side by side. In a heavy bottomed vessel, bring one liter of milk to a boil and on medium flame allow it to reduce to half the volume. Add 8 tablespoons of sugar, cardamom powder and saffron strands and mix well.

Add the cooked paneer balls slowly to this milk mixture and cook on low flame for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow it cool.
Refrigerate and serve with crushed pistachios on top.