Baked Gulab Jamun

Recipe Source: Priya Suresh

The final week of this month's blogging marathon starts from today and I chose the "Copy Cat " theme. I am supposed to cook from other marathoners' posts and it was quite challenging considering the fact that there are many mind boggling recipes in the marathon collection. I had one particular recipe in mind from dear Priya's blog when I visited her space yesterday. I totally forgot about that when I came across a baked version of gulab jamuns. I had missed this recipe due to my vacation and when I saw "zero oil" in the title, I must say that I was intrigued and interested at the same time.

I was even skeptical about the results of this experiment but I did try them today. For a baked version, these are pretty good and are almost close to the frying version. I did not get the regular brown color though. I think we can bake them at 300 deg F or a little lower temperature and have to keep constantly moving the jamuns all around for uniform baking. I noticed that they kept browning within 2 - 3 minutes on each side. If they are not moved, it would end up looking like the jamuns are burnt and so keep turning them.

Soaking jamuns in the sugar syrup for a few hours is very crucial in this recipe. When the jamuns come out baked, they are a little on the crispy side. You end up disappointed if you serve them immediately with sugar syrup. I had prepared them around 11 am and after a couple of hours of soaking, the texture of these baked jamuns was more like rosgullas. By evening, they tasted exactly like the fried jamuns except the color which didn't bother me at all.
We really enjoyed them and thanks Priya for this wonderful recipe and the delectable jamuns.

Ingredients: (Makes 12 jamuns)
1 ready made jamun mix (100 grams)
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp powdered cardamom
Slivered almonds / pistachio for garnishing

Preparing sugar syrup:
Add a cup of water to the sugar and bring it to a simmer. When sugar completely dissolves, add cardamom powder. If preferred, a pinch of orange food color may also be added at this point. Simmer 3 - 4 minutes more and turn off the stove.

Preparing the Jamun dough:
Add a few Tbsp of water and prepare a firm dough according to the package directions. Let it rest for 10 minutes. Then divide the dough into 12 portions and roll each of them into a ball with your hands.

Baking the Jamuns:
Preheat the oven to 300 deg F. Place the jamun dough balls on a greased or foil covered baking sheet and bake for 15 - 20 minutes, constantly turning them around for uniform baking.
Add them to the sugar syrup and let it soak for at least a couple of hours before serving. The longer soaking results in softer jamuns.

Check what other marathoners are cooking during BM#21.

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