The fever of making sweet is still there for me. As the Jalebi which I made a day before diwali, vanished in seconds, I thought to prepare another sweet on the very day of diwali. We call it Balushahi back home, which is quite an well known Indian dessert made from a stiff dough of all purpose flour, ghee and a pinch of baking soda. These are small doughnut like disks, fried in ghee or oil and dunked in thick sugar syrup to get a sugar coating over it. Containing a rich sweetness with flaky texture, Balushahis can well make the occasions even more special.

Ingredients for 10 pieces :

1. Plain flour – ¾ cup
2. Sodium bicarbonate – 1/8 teaspoon
3. Ghee/Clarified butter – 3 tbspoon
4. Plain yogurt (whisked) – 2 tbspoon
5. Cooking oil/Ghee for deep frying
6. Sugar – 1 cup
7. Water – ½ cup
8. Green cardamom powder – ½ teaspoon (optional)
9. Sliced pistachio for garnishing (optional)

Procedure :

Shift together the flour and bicarbonate of soda in a large bowl.

Add ghee to the flour mixture and rub with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Now add yogurt and make a dough (add few drops of water if needed). Don’t over knead the dough as we don’t need it to be very smooth and soft . Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it rest for 45 minutes.

Then make 10 small flat balls out of the dough. Make a small indentation at their centers using your thumb. The balls need not be very smooth either, so don’t overwork with them.

 Now heat sufficient amount of oil/ghee in a frying pan over medium flame. Gently slide the dough balls into the oil and deep fry them over low flame. Don’t overcrowd the pan, fry them in batches. Gradually the balushahi will start floating at the top. Turn gently and fry the other side till golden.

Remove them with a slotted spoon and transfer to paper towel to soak the excess oil. Let them cool and reach to the room temperature.

To make sugar syrup, take sugar and water in a medium size pan and heat over medium-high flame. As all the sugar dissolves and syrup starts boiling, add cardamom powder and let it simmer for 10 minutes or until attains two-thread consistency.

Remove the syrup from gas and dip cold balushahi in it. Let them soak the sugar syrup for 1.5 – 2 hours.

Gently remove balushahi on a serving plate and top with pistachio slices.

Serve after 1 hour to have a sugar coating at the surface of Balushahi.

Note :

1. Fry the balushahi over low flame otherwise only the outer part will turn golden and inner part remain uncooked. It may take some time, so have patience.
2. Don’t make the dough very soft and smooth otherwise you will miss its flaky texture.
3. If you don’t want the sugar-coating on your Balushahi then add 1 teaspoon of lime juice to the sugar syrup in order to prevent sugar crystallisation.