My Favorite Recipes Collection: Balushahi

Last year I made Gujia/Ghugra/Karonji during Diwali: Festival of Light. This year, I decided to make Balushahi. Especially after our trip to Turkey, where we had similar sweet treats like Balushahi. I decided to blend the flavor of India with Turkish sweet called Turkish Lokma. It is amazing how much similarities are there amongst all the food items all over the world. Balushahi is a traditional dessert originating from the Indian subcontinent.

It is similar to a glazed doughnut in terms of ingredients, but differs in texture and taste. Diwali, Dewali, Divali,or Deepavali , also known as the Festival of Lights, is a religious festival and one of the most important festivals within Hinduism. In Hinduism, it generally lasts five days (or six in some regions of India), and is celebrated during the Hindu Lunisolar months of Ashvin and Kartika (between mid October and mid November. It symbolizes the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance"The festival is widely associated with Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity and Ganesh god of wisdom and the remover of obstacles, with many other regional traditions connecting the holiday to Sita, and Rama, Vishnu, Krishna , Durga, Shiva, Kali, Hanumam, Kubera, Yama, Yami, Dhanvantari or Vishakarma. Furthermore, it is a celebration of the day Rama returned to his Kingdom in Ayodhya with his wife Sita and his brother Lakshmana after defeating the demon Ravana in Lanka and serving 14 years of exile. In the lead-up to Deepavali, celebrants prepare by cleaning, renovating, and decorating their homes and workplaces with diya (oil lamps) and rangoli (colorful art circle patterns). During Diwali, people wear their finest clothes, illuminate the interior and exterior of their homes with saaki (earthen lamp), diyas and rangoli, perform worship ceremonies of Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity and wealth,light fireworks, and partake in family feasts, where mithai and gifts are shared. Originally a Hindu festival, Diwali is now also celebrated by Jains and Sikhs. What better way to celebrate the sweet taste of victory than with dessert? That's precisely why Diwali sweets take center stage during this annual festivity. There are arrays of Indian Desserts during this season. We all have nostalgic memories of different sweet during this celebration. My favorite are Milk cake, Gujia, peda and Balushahi. First three of these revipes are on this blog, you can go on following links to get these my favorite recipes.

https://surekha-myrecipescollection.blogspot.com/2011/06/milk-cake-kalakand.html

https://surekha-myrecipescollection.blogspot.com/2020/11/ghujiaghugrakaranji.html

https://surekha-myrecipescollection.blogspot.com/2018/03/kutch-ka-yummy-peda-in-usa.html

Now I present you the recipe of Balushahi, which I made on this Diwali Oct 24th 2022. Balushahis are made of all purpose flour, and are deep-fried in Ghee and then dipped in sugar syrup. I Southern India it is referred to as Badusha. At first sight you may find a resemblance to the Western Doughnuts, but from the taste to texture this Indian sweet is totally different than its International colleague doughnut.

I tried to give a twist to this recipe by adding some Middle eastern flavor along with the traditional Indian flavor of Saffron and Cardamom. Making this sweet is very easy, yet requires lot of patience and care with few following important tips.

1. The sugar syrup is consistency of 1/2 to 1 string, (how you test is that put the drop of syrup on plate, when it cools, place between your thumb and index finger and try to separate your thumb and index finger and it should from 1/2 to 1 string.)

2. Second important tip is that make sure you don't knead the dough, and just combine the ingredient until they are well incorporated. Even though I used electric mixer to combine them I did not run the mixture for long time at all.

3. Third important tip is that you must fry the Balushahi at very low temp on your smallest burner of your stove. If you don't have the smallest burner, you can even place a flat griddle (Tawa) and place the frying pan on it. Typically in India they fry these in Ghee (clarified butter) but I used vegetable shortening for this, which was fine.

4. Another tip is when frying them you don't keep turning them multiple time. Once you place them in slow heated Ghee or shortening you would need to fry them for 7 - 8 min on one side, until that side is golden brown, then turn them over to fry them on other side. This way you are only turning them one time and total frying time for one batch would be 15 - 16 min. (if bigger Balushahi it may take up to 10 min on each side thus total of 20 min)

5. You would need to use the slotted strainer to get all the extra ghee or shortening out. Let them cool before you dunk them in prepared syrup. Syrup needs to be warm or hot, so if the syrup has cooled down, you have heat it up on stove before dunking the Balushahi in it.

6. Some recipes call for leaving them in syrup for 15 min, however from my trial of recipes I find it better tasting and flaky and crispy if you just dunk then turn it over in the syrup for 3 min max.

So keeping the above tips in mind, now let me list the Ingredients. This recipe yielded 34 small Balushahi. You can make them bigger that would yield about 17 pieces, but then it might take longer time to fry and also will need to soak them in syrup longer. To me smaller bites are better, you can always have second helping if desired :)

Ingredients:

For syrup:

2 cups of sugar
1 cup of water
2 tablespoon of water and 1/2 teaspoon of saffron
2 teaspoon of cardamom seeds, crushed and powdered.
1 teaspoon of fresh lemon or lime juice
2 teaspoon of Rose water
2 teaspoon of Orange blossom water (optional)
2 teaspoon of Elder flower syrup (optional)

The last three ingredient I added to give it more or Turkish Lokma taste.

For Dough:

1/2 cup plain yogurt chilled
1/2 cup Ghee (Clarified butter) This one you CAN'T substitute with vegetable shortening.
2 and 1/8 cup of all purpose flour
2-3 tablespoon of water if needed (depending on consistency of yogurt)
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg powder (or 1 teaspoon)
2 teaspoon of cardamom seeds crushed to powder.
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder

For Frying:

You would a shallow flying wok.
Ghee or vegetable shortening for deep frying, you can use vegetable oil but I used vegetable shortening.

For garnishing:

1/3 cup of roasted sliced or crushed pistachios ( I used salted one from Costco)
1/3 cup of sliced almonds
1/3 cup of crushed unsalted roasted cashews
Few crushed /powdered cardamom seeds, few saffron strands if desired.

Method:

First soak the saffron strand in water and set aside.
In an electric mixer with whisk attachment, mix ghee and chilled plain yogurt until creamy and smooth.
Take a sieve and sift the AP flour in a bowl, add nutmeg, cardamom powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Whisk all the dry ingredients in this bow so every thing is evenly distributed.
Add this flour mix to the creamy ghee and yogurt mix in electric mixture bowl. (add the 2-3 tablespoon of water if needed)
Now mix it until everything is well incorporated but do not mix it too long and do not knead it.
Dough should be soft but not runny and sticky.
Take it out of bowl and break it apart with your fingers.

Then form a ball and place it back in the bowl and cover with wet cloth and set aside for 45 min while you prepare the syrup.
Take a shallow frying pan and mix water and sugar together.
Place the pan on low heat.
Keep stirring it in between so sugar does not caramelize.
When sugar is dissolved completely add cardamom powder and saffron soaked water.
Stir and cook the syrup on medium to low heat.
Add lime or lemon juice.
Stir occasionally to avoid crystallization of sugar.
When it starts simmering, reduce the heat and simmer it until it is sticky to 1/2 to 1 string consistency.
Test it like I mentioned before.
Turn the heat off and set aside.
You can add rose water, orange blossom water and Elderberry syrup just before dunking the Balushahi in the hot syrup.

Making Balushahi from dough and frying them:

While you are working the dough, heat the ghee or vegetable shortening on lowest setting in your smallest burner.
Remove the wet cloth from the dough ball.
Take the dough ball (not kneading it) but place it on greased countertop.
With a rolling pin roll it out flat.
Then make a roll and fold both corners and flatten it and roll it this time make another roll in other direction.
Make a cylindrical roll and then cut in to small portion with knife.
Roll each small portion of dough ball gently and lightly between your palms (roll in one direction)
Flatten the roll and make and indentation with your finger in center of flattened roll.

Set all the Balushahi rolls on parchment paper and cover them with a wet cloth until ready to fry.
Check the heated ghee or vegetable shortening with a tiny piece of dough, it should come up gradually, if comes up right away then the ghee is very hot.
Keep the flame to lowest level and carefully drop the Balushahi dough ball in the oil, you can fry 6-8 balls at a time (depending on the size).
Be sure not to crowd them in the oil as the piece will expand in heated oil.
Do not stir them or turn them over.
When one side turns light golden brown (this might take 7 to 8 min or more if Balushahi is bigger in size)
This is when patience is required, if you turn the heat up then the will become golden brown from outside but may not be cooked inside.

After cooking them on one side, gently turn them over and fry the other side for extra 7 to 8 min on lowest heat.
If the oil becomes too hot, don't hesitate to take the frying pan off of heat and then replace it again.
Fry the both side until crispy and golden brown.
Using a slotted strainer, remove the fried Balushahi, draining the extra oil.
I placed them on pile of newspaper with top layer of paper towel.
When all of them are fried, you can cool them for few min.
Then heat up the syrup if too cold and then add rose water, orange blossom water and elder berry syrup. Mix well.
Dunk the Balushahi in warm/ hot scented syrup.
With spoon or tongs turn each Balushahi, with total time in syrup for 2-3 min
Place them on tray lined with parchment paper.

Garnish them with nuts and you can even put more crushed cardamom, and saffron strands on top.
If you like the nuts to stick on the Balushahi you can drizzle little syrup on each Balushahi.
Take the paper baking cups and place each Balushahi on it and serve.
The left over Balushahi can be stored at room temp in air tight container for 5-7 days and longer in the fridge.