Gulab Jamun Recipe With Milk Powder

• Milk Powder – 1 cup ( I used Everyday brand)
• All Purpose flour – 1 tbsp
• Fine Semolina / Chiroti Rava – 1 tbsp ( Must use fine rava)
• Baking Powder – 1/4 tsp
• Unmelted Ghee – 1 tbsp ( thick ghee)
• Cooking oil – 1/2 tbsp ( Use flavorless oil)
• Milk – As needed ( I used 1 tbsp)
• Water – 1.5 tbsp ( To soak semolina)
• Cooking oil – To deep fry

For Sugar syrup

• Sugar – 1 cup
• Water – 1.5 cups
• Saffron threads – few
• Crushed Cardamom seeds – 2 nos Or Rose essence – few drops

• Take the fine semolina ( Chiroti rava) in a small bowl and add 1.5 tbsp water to cover it. Let it soak well for 10 minutes. No problem if there is excess water slightly. Mix well and keep it aside. In a wide bowl, take the milk powder.Add ghee and cooking oil. Mix well with your fingers. Make sure fat is well distributed with the milk powder.
  
• To this mixture, add baking powder, maida and soaked semolina. Mix well with your fingers. Do not give too much pressure. Just mix gently. Now the mixture will resemble Pea sized granules. Then add boiled, room temperature milk little by little and try to gather the mixture to resemble a dough. Do not use your palm and knead it. Use your fingers alone(  I added 1 tbsp milk). Dough would be very sticky at this stage. Do not panic. Just cover the dough with a cloth ( Dry cloth, not wet ones) and rest it for 10 minutes.
  
  
• In a mean time, lets prepare the sugar syrup.In a deep bowl or kadai, mix sugar + water. Mix well in high flame till sugar melts completely. Then reduce the flame to medium and let the syrup roll boil for 5 minutes. Add cardamom powder or rose essence and saffron thread in the middle. Sugar syrup will become sticky to touch and resembles oil in consistency. Switch off the flame and keep aside. It will become warm.
  
• Now take the gulab jamun dough. It would be non-sticky to touch. Make small pinches roughly to make balls. Then shape the balls smoothly without cracks( This point is more important to get crack free gulab jamuns) Cover it with a cloth till use.

• If you think, dough sticks much to your hand, grease your palm with ghee OR wash your hands in water, wipe it dry and roll it. It will come out well. Just make sure there are no cracks. Do not roll it tightly. Do it gently. If you roll it too tight, jamuns may become hard.
• Heat oil in a kadai and keep the flame low to medium. When it gets heated, drop a pinch of dough, it should rise slowly and come to top without browning in a count of 5 ( I followed Savita’s instructions and counted up to 5. If the heat of oil is too less, gulab jamun will disperse in oil. If the temperature is high, its color would change quickly but it remains uncooked inside.So please be careful) Now stir the oil once and add the jamun balls. ( If you are a beginner, do a small test. i.e Heat little oil in a mini tadka pan and drop a small peanut sized dough ball. Check whether it disperses in oil, comes out hard etc. Deep fry it, open and check it is properly cooked. After doing this test, proceed for further deep frying) .Do not disturb the jamun for 10 seconds. Then stir the oil without breaking the jamun. Keep stirring the oil  and toss the gulab jamun so that it will get cooked evenly with a nice golden color. Keep the flame low to medium. It should be soft after frying and not too hard. Please refer the video for better understanding.

• Remove the cooked gulab jamun in a tissue paper and drop it in the syrup. Syrup should be warm not too cold. Let it soak for 2-3 hours to enjoy its best taste ! It looks shiny and soft after soaking well. This Gulab jamun stays good for 2 days without refrigeration. Enjoy !
  

• Gulab jamun will disperse in oil if the oil temperature is too low.
• Gulab Jamun will become chewy if you add less baking powder.
• No need to add soda for this recipe.
• Fine semolina is a must. Do not use coarse ones.
• Beginners try with half the quantity of ingredients mentioned to avoid wastage.
• I have not used lemon juice in the sugar syrup as I have added more water. It won’t crystallize.
• If  you have leftover fried gulab jamun, try this Jamun Kofta gravy