Gulab Jamun

Gulab Jamun is among India's most popular desserts! This delicious dessert consists of dumplings traditionally made of thickened or reduced milk, soaked in rose flavored sugar syrup. It gets its name from two words: Gulab which means rose (for the rose flavored syrup) and Jamun which is a kind of deep purple colored Indian berry (the cooked dumplings are dark brown in colour). Serve Gulab Jamun warm or at room temprature; by itself or topped with ice cream

Ingredients:

3 cups sugar

6 cups water

1 tbsp cardamom powder

2 tbsps rose water

3 cups powdered milk

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 cup thickened/ heavy/ double cream

Vegetable/ canola/ sunflower oil for deep frying

Method:

Mix the water and sugar in a deep pan and boil till all the sugar is dissolved. Turn off the flame and add the cardamom powder and rose water. Mix well and keep aside. Mix the powdered milk, all purpose flour and baking powder well. Add a little of the thickened cream at a time to them and knead to make a dough that is soft but not sticky. Divide the dough into walnut sized balls and roll between slightly greased palms till smooth. Heat the oil for deep frying in a wide pan on a low to medium flame. Fry the dumplings, stirring often to brown on all sides. Do not cook on very high heat as the dumplings will burn on the outside and remain raw inside! When cooked, drain (with a slotted spoon), remove the dumplings from the oil and transfer immediately into the sugar syrup. Repeat this till all the dumplings are cooked and added to the syrup. Allow the dumplings to soak in the syrup for 2 hours. Some serving suggestions: Warm Gulab Jamuns with ice cream; Gulab Jamun with thick cream. Gulab Jamun garnished with shavings of dried fruit like pistachio and almond.