Who ever added gluttony to one of the ‘seven deadly sins’ never tasted Gulab Jamuns for sure! I mean come on, are you saying that if you had one of these incredibly delicious and buttery soft ‘khoya balls soaked in sugar syrups’, you will be able to stop at just one? If you are one of those, I bow down to you! I am definitely not in your league. There are sweets and then there are ‘sweets‘. Gulab Jamun falls in the latter category. I haven’t met one person who dislikes them and honestly, what’s not to like in them?
Khoya…….yum!
Cottage cheese……..yum!
Sugar……..yum!
Pure Ghee……..yum!
Even the worst gulab jamun beats a lot of good sweets hands down on any day! Yeah, am a self proclaimed gulab jamun fan!
When I made the first batch of gulab jamuns, they were strictly o.k. So I made a few changes and made a new batch. They were better than the first. So I made them ……..again, the next day. They turned out to be good. But I couldn’t sleep that night. Has it ever happened to you that when you can’t seem to get something right, the thought of it consumes you so much that you can’t think of anything else (like a song that you can’t seem to remember or a dance step that you just can’t get it right)? Gulab jamun fever was on and my family was having a time of their lives with “gulab jamuns” galore. So after tossing and turning for an hour, at 1 am in the night, I finally tiptoed downstairs to make that batch of gulab jamuns which henceforward, will be my go to recipe in years to come.
In the morning, when I was trying to click a few pictures away from the prying eyes of my family, my son, being the kind- hearted soul that he is, 🙄 announced that I needed his help in pouring the syrup over the gulab jamuns. Needless to say, I had to clean the entire surface after he was done.
But I have to admit, it was fun!! And what did we do with so many batches of gulab jamuns, you ask? Well of course, we ate all of them cough!…….we shared a few and ate a few, after all, sharing is caring!
I am posting both my khoya and milk powder gulab jamun recipes as the process is exact same for both and both are equally delicious.
Milk Powder Gulab Jamun:
makes 8
For the jamuns
1/2 cup full fat milk powder
1/4 cup all purpose flour
75 ml heavy cream
pinch of cardamom
Ghee for frying
Method to prepare the dough:
Take milk powder and add all but 1 tbsp. cream to it so that it dissolves in it. We are saving 1 tbsp. cream for later in case we might need less than mentioned.
Add all purpose flour and mix gently. Add the remaining cream, if needed and make a soft dough.
Cover the dough with wet cloth and let it rest for 2-3 minutes.
Divide the dough into 8 parts and make smooth balls without any cracks.
For rest of the instructions, please read my Khoya gulab jamun recipe below.
Ingredients
- 100 gm Khoya
- 25 gm home made paneer
- 12 gm all purpose flour
- 7-8 tsp heavy cream
- pinch of cardamom
- Ghee to fry the jamuns
- 1 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 cup water
- 2 pinch saffron
- Edible silver foil (varak)
- Almonds, pistachios
Instructions
- Take a pan. Add water and sugar to it and let it boil. Switch off the stove as soon as single thread starts forming between your fingers.
- Grate the Khoya and paneer very finely.
- Add all purpose flour and mix gently.
- Add heavy cream and make a very soft dough. Consistency of dough will be sticky to touch.
- Cover the dough with wet cloth and let it rest for 2-3 minutes. Grease your hands very lightly and if the consistency of dough is right, you should be able to form balls very easily.
- In a small wok or small pan with handle, add ghee to fry the jamuns. Keep the heat on medium low (4 or 5 stove mark)
- Divide the dough into 12 parts and make smooth balls without any cracks.
- Add the balls to the ghee and fry them till they turn golden brown.
- Strain them out and put them in warm syrup for 4-5 hours.
- Decorate them with varak and nuts. Serve them warm.
Notes
There are a lot of things to be taken care of while making gulab jamuns. Because it is important that sugar syrup should be warm when you add the gulab jamuns, you should first prepare the syrup.
While is syrup is boiling, get your dough ready so that when the syrup is cooling off, you only have to fry the jamuns. By the time jamuns will fry, syrup will be at right temperature. Syrup should be warm but you should be able to dip your finger in it and should be able to keep it in there.
Make only that many gulab jamun balls that you will fry in one batch OR if you are making balls all at once, make sure you are covering them with wet cloth so that they don't dry out and form a crust. I prefer batches.
Temperature of the ghee is equally important. When you drop your gulab jamuns in it, they shouldn't come up for at least 30 seconds. There should be very little activity happening when you drop them first. If it's too hot, gulab jamuns will turn brown from outside but raw from inside.
As soon as you put the gulab jamun in the wok, start swirling the wok so that gulab jamuns don't stick at bottom and get brown from bottom. Throughout the entire frying process, don't use any spoon, ladle or strainer. Keep swirling the wok so that the jamuns are rotating and revolving at the same time. This ensures, gulab jamuns will color evenly and will not break. Once they are fried, you can use the strainer to strain them.
When you are making the dough, take extreme care that you are not over kneading it. If the dough oozes out oil, it means you over did it. You can still prepare gulab jamuns with it, they just won't be crack free and soft. Maybe you can use them to make gulab jamun curry.
Add heavy cream as you need, to prepare a soft and sticky dough. It shouldn't be gooey. It should form a ball but at the same time, it will not come off the surface of the bowl completely and as cleanly as a chapati dough.
There shouldn't be any cracks on the balls. Any little crack will become bigger while frying.
It is not required to form a proper single thread consistency sugar syrup. As soon as you see some semblance of thread forming between your fingers, switch off the heat.
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Tough to resist ..How I wish I could taste them..
🙂
Muh mein paani aa gaya
Wow, looking yummy
Yippiee..time for sm sweet moments…