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Jalebi

Kankana Saxena
Crunchy on the outside and juicy inside, rustic golden spirals that make a centerpiece at every festival in India – Jalebi! People like it for breakfast and people like it for dessert. Some like it hot and crispy, others prefer it soft and at room temperature. It can be either served with sweet rabdi or with cold sour yogurt. It’s tough to not pick one when you see a pile of Jalebi gleaming in golden syrup.
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 25 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine Indian
Servings 25 to 30 Jalebi

Ingredients
 

for Jalebi batter

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1½ tablespoon corn flour
  • 1½ tablespoon gram flour
  • 2 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter)
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon yeast
  • about 1 cup warm water
  • orange food color (optional)

for the syrup:

  • 1½ cup sugar
  • 1 cup water
  • 3 cloves
  • 2 green cardamom (crushed)
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • pinch of saffron threads (optional)

Instructions
 

  • Mix 1 cup of warm water with sugar and yeast. Stir, cover and let it activate.
  • In a mixing bowl, whisk all-purpose flour with corn flour, gram flour and salt. Pour ghee and give it a mix. You want to incorporate the ghee properly, so it's crumbly.
  • Now, pour the activated yeast and start whisking. Finally, add the food color (optional) and give it one last whisk. Make sure there are no dry crumbs and the color is mixed evenly.
  • Cover the bowl and let it ferment for 30 minutes. Do not shake or move the bowl. The batter is fermented when you see few bubbles on top. In the meantime, prepare the syrup.
  • In a saucepan, add everything mentioned you need for the syrup and let it simmer in medium heat for about 5 minutes. We don't want the syrup to have any string consistency, but it shouldn't be too light either.
  • To fry the Jalebi, heat enough oil in a flat saucepan. Keep the heat at medium heat. Now, using either a piping bag/zip lock bag or a squeeze bottle, start squeezing out the batter in hot oil making concentric circles. Do not overcrowd the pan.
  • As you finish shaping one jalebi and move to the next one, the first one should already puff up!
  • Fry until it's golden brown and crispy. It should take about 5 to 7 minutes. Once done frying, transfer it to the golden syrup and coat it all around. If the jalebi are too big, you can leave for about 30 second. Then, take it off and put it in a serving plate.
  • Enjoy fresh warm jalebi.

Video

Notes

  • The batter can also be prepared without yeast. In that case, you have to add sour yogurt to prepare the batter and allow it to rest overnight for it to ferment.
  • While frying the Jalebi, make sure the oil is at medium low or else the concentric circles will be very difficult to shape up. Also, please remember that making perfect Jalebi spiral is an art that comes with lots of practice.
  • Don't leave the fried jalebi in the sugar syrup for more than 30 seconds. It will turn soggy otherwise.

Nutrition

Serving: 25to 30 Jalebi