Jalebi!

Jalebi is an Indian Sweet which is basically deep fried batter in pretzel kind of shape and dipped in sugar syrup!

There are several ways to make Jalebis. I checked some recipes from Sanjeev Kapoor's site and at Manjula's kitchen. Check out Manjula's video for how to shape the Jalebis.

You can also use baking powder instead of yeast. Baking powder recipes and other variations can be found at Sanjeev Kapoor's site .

Here is what I came up with!

Ingredients:

Sugar Syrup:

• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup water
• pinch of cardamom powder
• pinch of saffron strands crushed

Jalebi:

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• just about 1/2 cup luke warm water
• 1 Tablespoon non dairy Yogurt
• 1/2 teaspoon quick rise yeast
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• pinch of saffron crushed
• orange food color(optional.. I dint use color)
• Oil for frying

Directions:

1. To prepare the sugar syrup, Boil all the ingredients till the syrup comes to a boil and thickens a bit. (2-3 minutes after the syrup boils). You can add other flavors to the syrup like kewra essence or rose water/essence instead of cardamom.
2. For the Jalebi batter, In a bowl, add warm water, sugar, saffron and yeast and mix well.
3. Keep the mixture for 10 minutes or until it is frothy.
4. Add in the flour, yogurt and mix well to make a smooth pouring consistency mixture without lumps.
5. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and keep for an hour.
6. Pour the mixture into a squeezy bottle or a zip-lock bag and cut a small hole(1/8 inch) on one side of the ziplock bag,
7. Authentic Jalebis are meant to be fried in ghee(clarified butter), like are you kidding me, 2 cups of ghee is probably 10-20 gallons of milk!. so I fried these in canola oil.
8. Starting from the center, squeeze out the batter in circles to make a big concentric circle.
9. Fry it on medium high heat on both sides, till the Jalebies turn golden brown.
10. Transfer Jalebis to warm sugar syrup and remove after half a minute.
11. Serve warm or cold as is or topped with Vegan Rabdi!

Seen below, the right sized hole fun Jalebi, and the jalebi at the back is with a smaller hole hence too crisp.

This one headed to Susan's Yeastspotting !!