Instructions

• You will need: One cup milk powder, two tablespoons of melted butter, half cup plain flour, half teaspoon baking soda, and adequate milk(with full cream) to knead the dough, oil for frying.
• Take all the ingredients and make dough. Milk used has to be enough to make the dough because higher quantities will make dough too soft. The dough should be medium hard. Make small balls, this dough will make around 18 to 20 jamuns. They will become large after they are fried and soaked in syrup. Take a small portion and roll it on your palm. But be very gentle, otherwise the jamuns will turn out hard. While rolling the jamuns, if you notice that they are too wrinkled, then that indicate that the dough is too tight. Add a little milk to it and knead again until you get the smoothness. Also if there are cracks on the balls, apply some oil in your palms. Keep the balls in a plate or any other vessel and cover it with a damp but dry kitchen towel.
• Heat the oil and then reduce the flame. Slowly put the balls one by one. Fry 4 to 5 balls at one time. Not more than that. Do not touch them. But gently shake the pan. It will allow the balls to be uniformly fried. After a few minutes the balls will float to the top. Always cook it on medium flame. Or they would remain raw inside, but look cooked from outside. If the oil temperature is right the gulab jamuns will rise to the top slowly.
• If the temperature is too high the balls will disintegrate in the oil. Once they are perfectly fried it will get a golden brown color.
• The sugar syrup ingredients are:-Two cups sugar, one cup water, three or four pods of cardamom, few saffron threads.
• Method: Take a saucepan. Add the sugar and the water. Powder the cardamom pods and add it along with the saffron threads in the sugar and water. Stir it. Then put it on medium heat for 15 minutes. The sugar will dissolve. The heat should not be high, or else it will caramelize the sugar.
• Now add the hot jamuns directly from the frying pan to the warm syrup (the syrup should not be hot). You can leave the gulab jamuns for a night to sit in the syrup. They can be eaten hot or cold. The cold ones are good. But if the jamuns are hot in warm syrup then it is best.

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