Gulab Jamun

For this recipe I must thank my friend Gayathri. We have been to functions at a common friend's house and Gayathri always brought her Gulabs - My son esp, declared them "THE BEST" he'd ever tasted - Haldiram ji - go fly a kite! So this recipe had to make it on my blog.  Went exactly per her directions and they turned out really good - This was another challenge - Know now why I stayed away from making sweets - but with the right recipe, it seems like huge achievement - so I say YAY!
This is a from the scratch recipe - So please follow all steps correctly

Ingredients
For the Jamun:

1 cup of Maida (I used all purpose flour)

1 ½ cup of carnation milk powder

¼ teaspoon of baking soda

Low fat / regular heavy cream ( I used regular)

For the Syrup

3 cups of sugar

3 cups of water

¼ teaspoon kesar powder

½ teaspoon of ground cardamom

Crsico vegetable oil to fry (a first for me)

Preparing the Jamuns

Sift the maida and the milk powder and the baking soda - The milk powder can be knotty - break them down as much as possible and discard the rest
Put mixture in a food processor/ blender and knead slowly adding the heavy cream until you get pizza dough/ chappati atta consistency

Keep closed for 45 minutes

Make large marble sized balls (see picture below) and keep ready
Get the oil going in a shallow pan - not out regular deep frying pan! Pour just enough oil you think will cover the jamun balls.
Next, mix the water and sugar and let it boil until it starts getting slightly sticky - On a gas stove, this takes about 4-5 minutes only -
Start frying the jamuns - if they have been rolled to perfect rounds, chances are they will favor one side and not want to be turned around - which is when you have to gently turn and hold them down so both sides get cooked. When they are a dark golden brown (see pic below) remove, drain and drop hot into the syrup all it to soak.
Secret tip for the syrup:
Take a little before the required consistency because as it cools it tends to thicken
Secret Tip for the Jamun:
Keep the heat at medium-low so it will allow the jamuns to cook from the inside to the outside - Or else the outside will brown while the inside remains uncooked.
Keep a paper-toweled colander to drop the fried jamuns into for a minute to drain the excess oil before dropping them into the syrup.

Happy Jamuning :-)