Sweets are synonymous with celebrations, be it a special occasion or any ritual that symbolises joy and fervour. Special sweets are a must to spread the festive spirit. Gulab Jamun is one of the most popular Indian sweets prepared during festivals, parties, weddings etc. Today I’m here to share Gulab Jamun Recipe With Khoya – Diwali Special Sweets.
Khoya Gulab Jamun or Mawa Gulab Jamun is the king of all Indian sweets. It is extremely delicious, luscious, and just melts in the mouth with its soft, spongy texture drenched in delicately flavoured sugar giving you a volcanic explosion of flavours. It could be the delicious cardamom tinged flavour, saffron or the soothing rose fragrance within it.
There are many instant mixes readily available in market but nothing can beat or even come close to the taste of homemade gulab jamuns prepared from traditional Khoya or mawa. Yes, this recipe for gulab jamun uses khoya to get the desired texture and flavour, which needs tad bit of prep and effort. Click here for the recipe to make Khoya at home. You can obviously use readymade khoya but nothing like homemade khoya.
Gulab Jamun recipe with khoya is made of a dough consisting mainly of milk solids glazed in a sugary syrup often flavoured with cardamom and saffron or rose water. This lip smacking Gulab Jamun cannot substitute any other Indian sweets included in Deepavali special sweets.
What is the process to make Gulab Jamun?
The dough for this Gulab Jamun Recipe With Khoya takes only few minutes to assemble with khoya made ahead of time. The balls must then be fried very slowly under carefully controlled temperatures. Some recipes increase the flour content in order to minimise the importance of the heat regulation, but the lesser the flour in the dough, the better the quality and taste of the Gulab Jamun. If the balls are browned too quickly or not fried long enough, the inside of the jamun remains uncooked and they tend to collapse in the sugar syrup. This is because the balls must be constantly agitated while they are being fried. Make sure you have an eye on them with no distractions while cooking these wonderful treats.
The name comes from rose water or rose essence is added in sugar syrup in ancient time. So rose means ‘gulab’ and fried and soaked ball known as ‘jamun’.
Up until a few years ago, I used to be skeptical about how to make gulab jamun with khoya and never dared to try it out. But once I kept doing trial and error methods, I found it so easy with this perfect Gulab Jamun Recipe With Khoya. It’s just the proper ratio of all the ingredients that leads to perfect jamuns. I’m sure you too will be able to re-create the same magical, ultra soft and mouth watering fried sweet balls from scratch in your kitchen and shower your taste buds with its unforgettable taste.
An unbelievable combination is to have hot Gulab jamuns with cold Ice cream, just the thought gets ma salivating!!……
Off to Gulab Jamun Recipe With Khoya!!
Step-by-Step process to follow
Gulab Jamun Recipe With Khoya
Diwali Special Sweets:
Gulab Jamun Recipe With Khoya involves mainly 4 steps:
- Making Khoya
- Preparing the dough
- Making sugar syrup
- Making balls, deep-frying the jamuns and soaking in sugar syrup
1. Making Khoya:
Clicke here for the recipe.
2. Preparing the dough for Gulab Jamun Recipe With Khoya:
- Crumble the khoya thoroughly and mash it well with the heel of your palm. Ensure no lumps or grains remain in the khoya.
- In a mixing bowl, add the crumbled khoya. To this add maida and cooking soda.
- Mix well. Add very little water or just sprinkle water to form a smooth and soft dough. Do not knead the dough very hard.
- The dough should be firm but pliable and should not feel dry. If it does feel dry, wet your hands and work the dough again.
- Cover the dough aside for 10-15 minutes.
3. Making sugar syrup for Gulab Jamun Recipe With Khoya:
- In the meantime prepare the sugar syrup. For this heat a heavy bottomed pan on a low flame.
- Add sugar, saffron strings and water and heat the sugar solution over medium heat till the sugar is completely dissolved.
- Turn off the heat once sugar dissolves completely. Ensure that it does not reach the one string consistency.
- Add cardamom powder and mix well.
4. Making balls, deep-frying the jamuns and soaking in sugar syrup:
- After the dough has rested for 15 minutes, roll out gently to make smooth balls out of the dough. Shape the dough into marble-sized balls (jamuns) that are smooth and creaseless. The shape can be round or oblong.
- Heat oil in a pan on medium flame. Heat ghee in the kadahi till a piece of dough tossed in comes up at once. When it is medium hot, lower the flame and gently slide the balls into the oil.
- Roll the jamuns with a ladle for even cooking and colouring. Add 5 to 6 jamuns at a time so that they are evenly cooked. But this depends on the size of the pan. I could add about 10 to 12 jamuns at a time.
Note:
To bring oil to the perfect temperature before adding jamuns, you can carry a test. Lower heat and fry a cube of bread till light brown (this lowers the temperature of the ghee). Remove the bread and add jamuns. This tip is useful for novice cooks.
- Keeping the heat low, fry these till a golden brown all over.
- Drain the jamuns out of the ghee, and fry the next lot, increasing the heat for a few seconds and then lowering it again before adding the jamuns.
- Remove the fried jamuns into an absorbent paper to remove the excess oil. Place the hot jamuns into the warm sugar syrup.
Note:
The sugar syrup must be warm and not too hot before adding the jamuns into it. It should have rested for at least half an hour
- Finally add rose essence. Cover and let it rest for an hour. This helps the jamuns to absorb the sugar syrup well. They also increase in size.
- Serve gulab jamuns hot or warm or garnished with nuts of your choice. You can also refrigerate and store for about a week.
- To have hot Gulab jamuns with cold Ice cream is an absolute delight.
Gulab Jamun Recipe With Khoya was a part of the Blog Hop theme ” DIWALI SWEETS”. Check out other delicious recipes by the Culinary Hoppers team members.
- Anupama : Dark Chickpea flour Oats Fudge
- Piyali : Beetroot Tofu Burfi Fudge
- Vani : Boondi Laddoo
- Shubha : Ricotta Cheese Burfi
- Parvathy : Maladoo
- Swati : Ragi Laddoo
- Shobana : Atte ke laddoo
Gulab Jamun Recipe With Khoya | Tips to make Soft Gulab Jamun From Scratch
Ingredients
- For the dough:
- 1 Cup khoya Click here for recipe
- 3 Tablespoons All purpose flour Maida
- 1/8 teaspoon cooking soda/Sodium bi carbonate
- Sufficient Oil for deep-frying
- For the sugar syrup:
- 1½ cups Sugar
- 1½ cups Water
- ½ teaspoon cardamom powder
- 5 to 8 saffron strands optional
- 3 to 4 drops rose essence optional
Instructions
Preparing the dough:
- In a mixing bowl, crumble the khoya thoroughly. Mash it well with the heel of your palm. Ensure no lumps or grains remain in the khoya.
- To this add maida, cooking soda and mix well.
- Add very little water or just sprinkle water to form soft dough. Do not knead the dough very hard. The dough should be firm but pliable and should not feel dry. If it does feel dry, wet your hands and work the dough again.
- Cover the dough and set aside for 10-15 minutes.
- While the dough is resting, prepare the sugar syrup.
For the sugar syrup:
- For this add sugar and water in a heavy bottomed pan.
- To this add a few saffron strands and heat the sugar solution over medium heat till the sugar is completely dissolved. Ensure that it does not reach the one string consistency. Turn off the heat and add cardamom powder and mix well.
Making jamuns and deep-frying them:
- After the dough has rested for 15 minutes, roll out gently to make smooth balls out of the dough. Shape the dough into marble-sized balls that are smooth and creaseless. The shape can be round or oblong.
- Heat oil in a deep pan on medium heat. Heat oil till a piece of dough tossed in comes up at once. When it is medium hot, lower the heat and gently slide the balls into the oil.
- Add 5 to 6 jamuns at a time so that they are evenly cooked.
- Roll the jamuns with a ladle for even cooking and browning.
- Keeping the heat low, fry these till a golden brown all over.
- Drain the jamuns out of the oil, and fry the next lot.
- Remove the fried jamuns into an absorbent tissue paper to remove the excess oil. Place the hot jamuns into the warm sugar syrup.
- Finally add rose essence. Cover and let it rest for an hour. This helps the jamuns to absorb the sugar syrup well. They also increase in size.
- Serve gulab jamuns hot or warm or garnished with nuts of your choice. You can refrigerate and store for about a week.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Do not knead the dough too much. Just gently mix and form the balls. If the mixture is dry, sprinkle few drops of water to make the dough soft and then form balls.
- Roll the balls smoothly making sure there are no cracks.
- If you fry jamuns on high heat, then they will turn brown immediately from outside but remain uncooked inside. So cook them on low to medium flame.
- If oil is not hot enough, the jamuns will get cracked and suck more oil.
- Keep turning the jamuns gently while frying to ensure even browning.
- If you want richer taste then use ghee otherwise use oil. You can also use combination of both ghee and oil. Or you can add 2 to 3 teaspoons of ghee in oil for little flavour.
- Do not roll large size balls from dough. Its size will increase when fried and soaked in the sugar syrup.
- The Jamun may look too dark when you take out from oil but it gets the gorgeous red colour once it is soaked in sugar syrup.
- Do not add them directly into very hot sugar syrup and make sure the syrup is warm (not hot) otherwise they will shrink in size. If the syrup has cooled down, warm the syrup before adding the jamuns.
- Use either saffron or rose water.
- If you like the taste, you can add small amount of rose water to get a rose flavour in the syrup (instead of using saffron). Alternatively you can also add a few dried rose petals in syrup after it is prepared. This is totally optional and personal preference.
HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS RECIPE!!
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Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2015 and has been updated with Video and replaced with better pictures for comprehensiveness and freshness.
Happy Cooking 
Cheers!!
Padma
