One of my favorite mithai has been GulabJamun, specially the warm tender ones soaked in sugar syrup – mouth watering.

After some failed attempts at making Gulab Jamun at home I finally embarked on the pretty awesome recipe by Vahchef Here.

While I almost followed the same recipe I tweaked a thing or two in the process and found out what helps make soft Gulab Jamuns – now since they are not made with Khoya, they wont be the perfect Store bought delightness but they will pass for pretty much the same thing.

Ingredients for Syrup:

• 3 cups water
• 2 cups sugar
• some cardamoms
• 1 tb spoon rose water
• 1 tb spoon lemon juice.

Ddd everything together and give it a good boil. Just make sure it doesn’t thiken too much. When done, take off stove.

Ingredients for Jamuns:

• 2 cups of non fat powder milk
• almost 1/2 cup of milk
• 2 Tea spoon flour
• 2 tea spoon sooji (soaked in warm water for 10 mins)
• 3/4 tea spoon baking powder
• 2 Tea spoon butter
• Oil for frying.
• (Sugar is not needed in the Jamuns – please ignore it in the picture above)

I mixed baking powder and flour with milk powder and gave it a whisk, then I drained all the water of sooji and mixed it thoroughly with the flour using my hands. (what I did wrong was pour all the sooji at once in the bowl – it made clumps, which didn’t effect the last product though, but I could do better if I would have added in maybe 3-4 batches). Then I added the melted butter and crumbled it really good.

The secret is NOT to kneed it. then added milk bit at a time while continue to crumble it, soon it will start to get together and have a khoya like consistency. Now Leave aside for couple of minutes. Then gently roll it and make small balls and set aside and start frying.

Now frying is the key – frying should take at least 7 minutes. Otherwise they won’t cook properly. Oil should be medium low at the beginning (to check if its adequately hot – drop a spec of batter and it should gradually rise up). Keep stirring the balls and somewhere in the middle slightly raise heat. (I set the timer for 7 minutes to help me ease this process) My frying looked something like this in time lapse.

Put the syrup pan on stove and let it heat up again gently add the jamun and let it boil a bit on high. After a couple of minutes they are ready to be relished.

Important points:

1. The vah chef used 1:1 sugar and water ratio but I have found out that gulab jamuns tends to absorb thinner syrup better.
2. When mixing the Sooji & Milk add in very little bit at a time and mix and repeat.
3. It’s better to make all balls first and then start frying otherwise the batter starts to stiffen and you might have to add more milk.
4. Add 5-6 balls at a time do not over-crowd the pan while frying. and Just keep stirring the balls while frying, if you stop in a middle they will get burnt from the bottom and won’t have even coloring.
5. Start with Medium low to low heat and when you start seeing that the balls are swelling slightly raise heat to medium.
6. One of my friend tried the same chef’s recipe but added grated coconut in it!

Now – you gotta try this one :)!