Gulab Jamun

1. For the Jamuns Combine sugar and water in a flat bottomed broad pan and simmer on a low heat until sugar dissolves.

2. Add cardamom powder, rose essence and saffron and keep the sugar syrup on low heat.

3. The syrup should be warm not hot.

4. Make sure it is near to where you are deep frying Jamuns.

5. You want to make it easy to drop the jamuns directly into the syrup.

6. Heat oil on a medium flame.

7. Now mix the homemade Khova, all purpose flour and the cooking soda.

8. Knead all of them together. You might need few tsp. of water to form a smooth dough.

9. Add a tsp at a time until you reach the correct dough consistency.

10. Form small balls of this dough. Make sure they are less than say small limes.

11. This is important since they will become large while deep frying and larger when soaked in syrup.

12. Another important point to note is to shape smooth balls.

13. No cracks should be visible since this will cause the jamuns to disintegrate while soaked in the syrup.

14. To make a smooth dough, one simple technique would be to grease your palms, either with ghee or oil while making the balls.

15. Fry the jamuns till golden brown over a low to medium flame, keeping oil temperature uniform.

16. Oil should not smoke. You will find the jamuns go down, then in about 10 seconds or so, floating to the top.

17. Its a wonder to see them rotating on their own in the oil.

18. It seems that they like to brown uniformly well.

19. Once they get uniformly brown on all the sides, remove them from the oil making sure to drain the excess oil and drop it straightaway on the warm syrup on the side.

20. The hot jamuns in the warm syrup helps them to soak the syrup well making them incredibly soft.

21. And if you made sure to keep the size and the smoothness intact, they will not fall apart either and hold their shape.

22. You can of course deep fry 3-4 jamuns together depending on the size.

23. But make sure not to crowd them since it would bring down the temperature of the oil/ghee and the result would not be that good and the jamuns wont be cooked inside and might end up being soggy.

24. Drop all the fried jamuns in the syrup and let it soak for at least 1 -2 hours for them to soak the syrup.

25. You can increase the syrup in the original recipe if you want the Jamuns to float in the syrup.

26. Also if you live in a cold place, you will find the sugar syrup thickening up if you keep it for some time.

27. You know you have made the perfect jamuns when you see them absorbing the syrup but continuing to float in the syrup.

28. Gulab Jamuns can be stored in room temperature for a week.

29. Store them closed with a plastic wrap.

30. More than that, then fridge is a good idea.

31. Though they are good cold, they are best warm.

32. If you have refrigerated them, warm them up in a microwave for few seconds before serving!