GI-Protected Sweet · Milk-Soaked Dumplings
Cumilla Rasmalai
Photo: Sm faysal / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Two rival sweet shops — one in Comilla, one in Kolkata — still argue over who actually invented rasmalai, and Comilla's claim was strong enough to win the dessert its own geographical indication tag in Bangladesh.
Soft, flattened cottage-cheese dumplings are simmered in sugar syrup, then soaked in reduced, sweetened milk flavored with cardamom and topped with pistachio or saffron. Comilla's confectioners, most famously Matri Bhandar, have sold it as the city's signature sweet since the shop opened in 1930.
Why it's made this way: The Sen brothers, Khanindra and Manindra, built Matri Bhandar's reputation on this recipe in Comilla starting in 1930, and the city's version became distinctive enough to earn official geographical indication status — granted in 2024 — as Comilla's own rasmalai.
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