Gulab Jamun

Gulab Jamun is a South Asian sweet made by rolling a dough based mainly on milk solids into balls, frying them, and letting sweet syrup soak all the way through. Its brown surface is smooth, and when it is cut, the inside shows fine pores, so the soft milk dough and the syrup can be eaten together. It is popular in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and elsewhere, and it appears both on celebratory tables and in the everyday selection of sweet shops.

Khoa, made by reducing milk, becomes the dough

The traditional base of the dough is khoa, made by cooking milk down. It is also known by other names, such as khoya and mawa. When milk is heated in a wide pan and stirred while its moisture evaporates, the milk solids come together into something like a soft paste dough. Khoa is a dairy product that gathers together the solids of milk and serves as an ingredient for sweets.

There are types of khoa that are low in moisture and densely compacted, types with distinct granules, and types that are soft and retain a lot of moisture. The type suited to gulab jamun is the moist type called dhap. Its remaining moisture spreads through the maida, a refined wheat flour, and through semolina when it is added, helping them mix evenly with the other ingredients. The properties it needs differ from those of the khoa used for peda or barfi.

The khoa is combined with wheat flour and a small amount of leavening agent and shaped into balls without cracks. The flour binds the dairy ingredients into a single dough, and in methods that use a leavening agent, the leavening creates pores inside during frying. Doughs heavier in flour and doughs heavier in milk, or doughs made with moist khoa and with dry khoa, end up in different states even with the same amount of added water.

Today’s versions made from milk powder

Today, in addition to methods using fresh khoa, methods that start from milk powder or dedicated mixes are also widely used. When milk powder is used, water is added back to the dried milk solids to make the dough. Among the products of the dairy cooperative Milma is one made by combining khoa, wheat flour and skimmed milk powder, frying it, letting it absorb syrup and packing it in cans.

There are also formulations that add chhena, milk curdled with acid. Chhena and khoa are both dairy ingredients, but the former is curdled with acid and drained of moisture, while the latter is milk whose moisture has been reduced by heating. Between doughs centered on khoa and doughs that combine it with chhena, the proportions of flour and moisture also change to suit the state of the milk.

In Japan, home-style methods using readily available dairy products have also been introduced. The recipe from S&B Foods combines sieved cottage cheese with egg, butter and wheat flour, and uses cardamom in both the dough and the syrup. It skips the step of reducing milk to make khoa: the fried balls are soaked in syrup and chilled overnight. When the dairy product changes, the moisture in the dough, the proportion of flour and the frying conditions change as well.

Before the fried color, there is the structure at the center

The shaped dough is fried slowly in ghee or vegetable fat. This step does not only brown the surface; it heats the dough through to the inside and creates a structure that the syrup can enter. During frying, moisture evaporates and the starch and milk proteins change, so the surface and the center end up in different states. Balls that have colored quickly only on the outside and balls that have been heated evenly to the center differ in both their cut surface and their texture.

The oil temperature is chosen according to the dough and the equipment. Some khoa-based recipes (ingredient proportions and method) fry at around 130–140°C. Vacuum frying at reduced pressure has also been studied: in trials at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, the same dough combining chhena and khoa was heated at atmospheric pressure at 160°C for 4 minutes and compared with low-pressure heating at 125–145°C for 8–12 minutes, among other conditions. The vacuum-fried sample selected in that experiment was confirmed to contain less fat, be softer and have pores inside compared with the atmospheric-pressure sample it was compared with. Along with the formulation of the milk dough, the pressure during heating is a factor that changes the internal structure.

The fried dough is transferred to syrup and given enough time to absorb it. As the syrup penetrates to the center, the result is moist and tender. The finished result depends on the combination of the syrup’s concentration, temperature and soaking time with the state of the pores in the fried dough. Fine pores not only create lightness but also provide space for the syrup to enter.

A rose name and a fruit-like shape

Gulab is the name for rose water, derived from the Persian gul, meaning flower, and āb, meaning water. Jamun refers to a deep purple South Asian fruit, whose round shape and size are echoed in the name of the sweet. The fruit appears not as an ingredient but as a name that evokes shape and color.

Besides rose water, the syrup may use cardamom, saffron or kewra. Rose water remains in the name, but the fragrance is not fixed to a single kind. Besides balls, oval and cylindrical products are also made.

Sweets in which fried dough is soaked in rose-water syrup include West Asia’s luqmat al-qadi, among others. However, a dough centered on khoa made from reduced milk and a fermented dough based mainly on wheat flour differ in substance. While origin stories link the sweet to the Mughal court, no reliable date has been established that ties the emergence of today’s gulab jamun to a single invention by a single cook.

Names that vary with color, dairy ingredient and place

Kala jamun is fried to a deeper, almost black brown. Some formulations add sugar to the dough as well, and differences in the dough before it is soaked in syrup also affect the color. Bengal’s pantua, meanwhile, is known as a sweet made by frying a milk dough containing chhena and soaking it in syrup. Even where the methods are similar, a difference in ingredients—whether the milk is concentrated or curdled with acid—overlaps with local names.

There is also dry jamun, which is lifted out of the syrup before serving. In the method of the cook Dassana Amit, the fried balls are first soaked in syrup, drained of syrup, and then coated with fine sugar or desiccated coconut. “Dry” does not mean that the syrup is not absorbed; it refers to a form served without liquid syrup around it. In contrast to the moist dough inside, granulated sugar or coconut remains on the outside.

Nepal’s festival of lights and South Africa’s elongated form

In Nepal, it is popular under the name lal mohan. In a report on sweet shops in Jawalakhel in the Kathmandu Valley ahead of Tihar, it is listed as one of the items set out for the festival. During Tihar, people come to buy assortments of sweets for offerings to the goddess Lakshmi and for Bhai Tika, the celebration of brothers and sisters. Lal mohan is one of the sweets displayed at those counters alongside other milk sweets and fried sweets.

In South Africa, where people of South Asian descent live, an elongated gulab jamun based mainly on condensed milk and wheat flour is also made. In a collection of traditional recipes from the local sugar maker Huletts, condensed milk is combined with ghee, semolina, nutmeg and cardamom, and wheat flour and leavening agent are added to make a dough that is shaped into short sausages. After frying, they are soaked in warm syrup for 2–3 minutes and finished with a coating of desiccated coconut.

The occasions for eating them listed in the same collection include weddings, birthdays, prayer offerings, Diwali and Eid. This adaptation—replacing the step of reducing milk to make khoa with condensed milk, making the balls elongated and soaking them in syrup only briefly—also shows the sweet as it continues to be made in its local setting.

Glossary