How do you describe the sensation when something just melts in your mouth and while it travels down your windpipe "throat" (updated for the critical bunch out there who just don't get it!), it leaves a feeling of warmth and coziness as if you are the most special person in this world? How do write or even portray that soft fluffiness of the jamuns oozing with that delicious sweetness? Being a food blogger, these Gulab jamuns became a downright writer's block for me. And what more - it made a frantic and hopeless photographer out of me too. B'cos try as I might, I couldn't think of the right words to explain how I felt and also failed to capture that velvety smoothness of these famous Jamuns having prominence in the "Most Wanted" list of Indian desserts.

I have hammered the point enough in this blog about my lack of craziness for sweets. Very select few escape into my liking, with the Baklava being a recent addition. But Gulab Jamun was the King (or is it queen?) and almost the only participant in this list for a long time. My mother knew that Gulab Jamuns were the only sweets that I would have no control over and hence made it rarely. She, being an owner of sweet tooth ( should say teeth!), they were quite common in my household. I would never touch even one small piece of it. But the day she makes Gulab Jamuns, they would inevitable disappear the same day. She feared those moments cos the next few weeks, she would have to hear my laments of gaining weight, over poor wardrobe and other inexplicable tantrums.

When Srivalli announced Gulab Jamuns as the theme for this months ICC, I was ecstatic. We were given 3 different recipes to try. Only lathamma from Yumblog had a recipe which was v v similar to mine. Hence, I thought why not try some other recipe. Actually I am of a belief that as far as Indian Sweets go, few recipes literally adopt you. So, suppose one dish has say 5 different recipes, may be only one of it will literally beck and call you and would dance to your tunes while another recipe may do so likewise for some other person. Like that, the other 2 recipes given to us for the challenge, did not dance to my tunes. I was very dissapointed with the results. Agreed they were decent, but they were not of the same quality and taste, I had gotten spoilt on.

Hence I went back to mine (i.e to lathammas recipe) and VIOLA, my good old soft and fluffy jamuns came back me :). You can use store bought Khoya or even go for the instant made ones ( I will do a post on that later), but trust me when I say this - fresh homemade traditional Khoya is the main reason for the amazing texture for the Gulab jamuns. It may sound time consuming and hard, but its not as bad as its made out to be. You can make Khoya  the previous day while you are cooking your day to day meals.

It takes 1-2 hours to make and needs only occasional stirring. On the day of making the Jamuns, it becomes a breeze to have these khoya on hand since making the jamuns themselves takes like 30 minutes totally! Though I have given the recipe given to us for the challenge, you will find few changes here and there with tips on my end to get perfect Jamuns.