Home made Jalebies - Indian Dessert

This is a holiday season and hence it is imperative that we make something sweet to celebrate it. What could be better than Indian Sweet called Jalebi?

Turns out making Jalebi was harder than I thought while watching VahChef video on the YouTube. But making batter was easier and straightforward. Difficult part started following this procedure. So here is what I did.

To be honest, this was my 4th attempt making Jalebies. I think this was the time where I got it quite alright. I would not talk about first 3 attempts where 'product' looked like anything but classic 'Jalebi'.

Here we go,

Ingredients :

1. All purpose flour
2. Curd
3. Yellow color (You can use another color if you are looking for Jalebies of custom colors such as green, red or #0FE3421)
4. Oil for frying
5. Saffron

Procedure :

1. Add 2-3 tea-spoons of curd to bowl. Add all purpose flour to it. The quantity of flour should be in such a way that mixture should have medium consistency. Do not make it too liquidy or thick otherwise either Jalebi will flatten or it won't come out properly respectively.
2. Add 2-3 drops of desired color to the mixture. (I usually use yellow since it gives authentic color to Jalabies)
3. Keep this mixture in the bowl and let it slightly ferment for 5-6 hours. This will give it nice fermented smell and also make Jalebies fluffy.
4. Now take a zip lock bag. (Its size should be enough to accommodate sandwich or big enough to add the Jalebi mixture). Add the mixture to the bag and make hole to one of the bottom corners.
5. Do not make a hole to zip lock bag too big, it might make ridiculous shapes. First start with small size and increment the size as required.
6. As per my experience, maintain the batter consistency between medium to medium thick. Too thin mixture will distort the Jalebi shape. (Unless of course you are professional chef as VahChef. But in other scenarios please stick to medium consistency and keep experimenting until you get it right)
7. Take 2-3 inch of oil in a cooking pan and turn the gas on medium-medium high flame. (Do not keep it too low as it will flatten Jalebies or too high will burn them up)
8. Take the mixture into zip lock bag with hole at the bottom corner. Make sure the oil is properly heated to desired level. Begin discharging mixture into pan starting the stream from center moving outwards at the same time moving it in circular fashion. so that the shape looks like a spiral.
9. Once you're happy with shape, but the stream and attach the cut end to the center of spiral
10. Use the same technique to draw other spirals too.
11. Depending on the size of pan, this will enable you to make 3-4 jalebies in one batch.

Indeed from my experience it's far from perfection when you do it for first time. Sometimes it's oil temperature or batter consistency. Keep experimenting it and you will strike the balance to make perfectly round, hollow and smooth Jalebies

Procedure for making Sugar syrup

Sugar syrup in another sweet part of Jalebi recipe. (No pun intended). Take 1 cup of sugar and add half cup of water to it and keep the mixture on medium flame for 10-15 minutes until it comes to boiling point. Add few drops of lemon juice to it. (It will avoid crystallization when the mixture cools down). Check the consistency while boiling the mixture. Add the sugar if mixture has too much of water. Make sure to make the sugar syrup with medium-thick one string consistency

After Jalebies are properly fried on medium flame on both sides for 5-10 minutes, carefully take them out with frying spoon and thoroughly dip them into sugar syrup from both sides.

You Jalebies are now ready to serve hot, crispy and fresh.

Here are some of the snaps of my 4th and final attempt making Jalebies.