Gulab Jamun Using milk powder

In India, festival season is in full swing and everyone are busy making sweets or snacks. Kids will be enjoying the delicious sweets/ savories made by their moms. Bakeries are filled with mouthwatering, scrumptious ghee sweets. Those who want to try their hands at making these sweets from scratch will be searching the internet or from recipe books.

In my house as my kids love sweets/ desserts the most, I thought of making these gulab jamuns, which are my childhood favorite sweet.

As a kid, when my dad prepared these gulab jamuns, I used to finish them one by one without my brothers noticing me. You heard it right, my dad used to prepare all the sweets at home as he loved making them and to give my mom some rest from cooking, he used to prepare most of the sweets and we (my brothers and myself) used to assist him in the cooking. Those were the days we used to enjoy the food made at home. Nowadays it's a very busy life and everything will be readymade/ store bought.

Gulab jamun got its name because the sugar syrup is rose scented and the deep fried balls are the size of jamun berries. Traditionally these gulab jamuns are made in pure ghee for the richness and for taste, but mostly these are deep fried in oil. The process of making these jamuns look tedious but once you get the right consistency of the sugar syrup and the not so dry dough, then all the remaining steps are very easy.

Before I used to make these using gulab jamun mix. I never thought that I would make gulab jamuns from scratch, but I tried it for my little one’s birthday and they came out perfect. Just make sure, the dough balls must be smooth without any cracks.

Try these and let me know….

Ingredients:

1. Milk Powder- 1 Cup
2. Maida- 2 tbsp
3. Yogurt- 2 tbsp
4. Salt- a pinch
5. Bakin Soda- a pinch
6. Oil/ Ghee- 1 tbsp
7. Sugar-1 Cup
8. Water- 2 cups
9. Lemon Juice- 1 tbsp
10. Cardamom Powder- 1 tsp
11. Rose essence- 1 tsp (optional)
12. Pistachios(powdered)- for garnish

Method:

For the sugar syrup:

1. Mix the sugar along with water and cardamom powder in a bowl. On a medium flame stir, the mixture till the sugar dissolves completely. Add lemon juice to prevent syrup from crystallizing. After some time this will form a syrupy/ sticky consistency, stirring occasionally. When it is ready, switch off the flame.

For the Jamuns:

1. Mix the milk powder, maida and soda in a bowl using a spoon.
2. Add ghee/ oil rub well with fingers. Add yogurt 1 spoon at a time and mix. Keep on adding yogurt and mix gently until the dough is soft and sticky. Don’t add too much of yogurt or else it will absorb more oil while frying.
3. Do not over mix the mixture or else the jamuns will become dense and will not absorb sugar syrup.
4. Grease your palms with oil or ghee and make round, crack- free ball from it. Make small balls out of the dough.
5. Heat oil for deep frying and when it becomes hot, drop the balls one by one. On a medium to low flame, let the jamun balls fry till it becomes golden brown color.
6. Transfer them to a kitchen towel. Drop these fried, drained jamun balls into the prepared sugar syrup.
7. Let them soak for about 1- 2 hours. Serve them hot or cold by garnishing them with powdered pistachios.