It is interesting how festivals bring so much of happiness in life that you tend to forget things not happening right and you move on to celebrate with everyone else around you. I had been waiting eagerly for Diwali like every other year. I had been planning to do a lot of things to welcome this joyous festival of lights. That is when some thing bad happened to me just a couple of days before Diwali and I met an accident which kind of dampened my spirits. I was resting at home thinking of all those things which I wanted to do to celebrate Diwali with family. One of which is of course making some homemade sweets too. But then I challenged myself seeing all the positivity which my friends brought in for me. That positivity had the courage hidden in it which I had to unlock and set free. So I got up and felt strong from within, thinking this is how life is. Ups and downs are meant to be the part of life. With whatever resources I had at hand, I headed to my kitchen to cook these scrumptious Gulab Jamuns. Gulab Jamuns are the quintessential Indian sweet which probably every Indian would have grown up eating. To me, they epitomize the Indian desserts. Warm gulab jamuns are just good enough to sum up any meal nicely. And trust me they are as easy to cook as delicious they are. And in case, you haven’t yet thought about what you are going to make, we would definitely recommend you to try this. And we bet, you’d fall in love with these little sugary cuties. These gulab jamuns are just perfect for this vibrant and joyous festival of lights. Do cook these at home, share with your friends and family and celebrate with them together. Happy Diwali to all you lovely readers!
- 2 cup milk powder (I used Nestle Everyday)
- 1 cup milk + 1/4 cup extra for dough
- 100 gm unsalted butter
- 8 - 10 tbsp refined flour
- 1/8 tsp baking soda
- Ghee for frying gulab jamun
- 4 cups water
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 7-8 Cardamom, crushed
- In a non-stick frying pan, heat butter and 1 cup milk together on low flame, until butter is melted. Add milk powder and mix well. Keep stirring constantly on low flame, until all the milk is evaporated. Let it cool to room temperature.
- In a separate saucepan, prepare sugar syrup by boiling togther 4 cups water and 3 cups sugar and crushed cardamoms, until the sugar is dissolved. To check if sugar syrup is ready, drop 1 - 2 drops of syrup in a plate and touch between your two fingers. If it feels slightly sticky, the sugar syrup is ready. It should not be too sticky and should not have one thread consistency. Keep the sugar syrup warm.
- In a bowl, knead together the previously cooked milk powder mixture with 8 tbsp of refined flour and baking soda. Knead with your palms to make a smooth shiny dough. If it is too sticky, add more flour, one table spoon at a time. And if it is too dry and crumbly, add some milk, one tbsp at a time. The dough should be pliable and have smooth texture.
- Now, heat ghee in a wok on a very low flame. Taking one tbsp of prepared dough at a time, roll into small balls. Dough balls should not have any cracks on them before frying. If there are cracks, add some milk and knead the dough again to make it look smooth.
- Fry the dough balls on a very low heat, not over crowding the wok. Fry them until they look reddish brown. Take out the cooked dough balls from ghee and put them in warm sugar syrup. Repeat with all the dough balls. Let them sit in sugar syrup for at least 4 hours, so that they absorb the syrup throughly.
- Enjoy these gulab jamuns warm.