Gulab Jamun

If you have a sweet tooth, you will love this recipe.This is one of the staple Indian desserts and this is from my grandmother's cookbook. The following recipe serves 10-12 people.

Ingredients:
ghee or oil for frying.

For jamun:
2 cups mawa (also called khoya, you can find it any regular Indian grocery store)
3-4 table spoons all purpose flour
3 tablespoons whole milk
1 table spoon ghee

For syrup:
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1/4 teaspoon elaichi powder (it is nothing but the powder of cardamom seeds)

Method:
Mix mawa, milk, all purpose flour, and ghee well and knead the mixture 10-12 times. Make small balls, around 1 inch by 1 inch balls (do not tend to make bigger sized balls, they won't cook when you fry them). 2 cups of mawa should give you around 30 balls.

Heat a pan on medium high heat, put sugar and water and bring it to a boil. Cut down the heat to medium and let the syrup continue to cook for another 10-15 minutes or until the syrup turns very light golden brown. Add elaichi powder at the end. Keep the syrup warm.

In another pan heat ghee or oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot, fry the mawa balls until golden brown. It should take around 10 minutes to turn golden brown. If they turn golden brown too fast, it means that your oil is very hot than necessary. Do not over crowd the pan or cook the balls over high heat. Once the jamun are out of oil, take them onto a paper towel to remove excess oil (for 5 to 10 seconds) and immediately drop them in the warm syrup.

Leave the jamuns in sugar syrup to soak for up to 30 minutes. These jamuns could be served warm or cold.

Tips and More:

• Garnish with toasted slivered almonds and pistachios.
• Serve these jamuns with vanilla bean ice cream and you will be over the top. 
• If you are planning for a party, this is one dessert that you could make almost two days ahead of time and leave it at room temperature.
• When you buy mawa from a store, what you will get it as a thick block. Cut it into small cubes and put them in a mixer. Pulse the mixer for 5 seconds.
• If you don't find mawa/ khoya in the regular Indian grocery store, it is easy to make at home. Heat a pan on medium high and add 3 cups of ricotta cheese to it. Stir constantly so that the cheese doesn't get burnt at the bottom of the pan. Do this until the moisture in the cheese is gone and the mixture is thick and leaves the pan easily. The texture should be like a thick dough ball. This will take around 20-30 minutes. It will take hours to make mawa in the traditional way.
• Ghee is nothing but clarified butter. If you don't find ghee, use butter. For this recipe, you can also replace ghee with 1/2 teaspoon baking soda.