Lighten Up Your Divali with Cassava Flour Gulab Jamun

During Divali, everyone is busy shopping for new clothes, decorating their homes, buying fire crackers and making sweets. Goolab jamun, kurma, ladoo, jalebi, peera, and barfi—as Trinidadians call it—are eaten year-round but it’s a must in October since no puja or Festival of Lights celebration is complete without Indian desserts. Surprise your loved ones with gifts of this easy, homemade Divali sweet.

The name of this dessert, however, has caused some conflict over the years. Trinidadians know this delicacy as “goolab jamoon“, but the Guyanese call it “mithai” or “kurma”. All are technically wrong, though. As our ancestors made their way from India to the West Indies, their words got misused and formed its own “language” over time. In India, gulab jamun is traditionally prepared as round dumplings soaked in a rosewater syrup. In the Caribbean, it’s a fried fritter rolled into cylinders with pointy ends and coated in a spiced sugar syrup. Goolab jamoon, gulab jamoon, goolab jamun—whichever way you spell it, whatever you call it, the thing tastes real good so who cares?

GOOLAB JAMOON

AUTHOR: Chef Chelsae-Marie Lee Kong

CATEGORY: Desserts

DIFFICULTY: Intermediate

PREP TIME: 10 mins

COOK TIME: 20 mins

TOTAL TIME: 30 mins

INGREDIENTS

•  1 ½ cup Jinca Foods cassava flour
•  3 ½ cup all-purpose flour 
• 1/2 teaspoon Chief salt 
• 1 teaspoon Chief ground cardamom 
• 1 cup butter
•  1 14-ounce can condensed milk
•  ½ cup evaporated milk
•  1 cup Nariel coconut oil, for frying
• For the syrup:
  • 2 cups sugar 
  • 2 cups water

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, mix Jinca Foods cassava flour and all-purpose flour with Chief salt and Chief ground cardamom.
2. Cut in butter, or rub between fingers with flour mixture until the flour mix is crumby.
3. Add evaporated milk and condensed milk. Stir until well-incorporated.
4. Fill a medium pan with Nariel coconut oil and heat over medium-high temperature.
5. Using floured-hands, shape the dough into 2-inch ovals.
6. Fry until golden brown and place on a paper-lined sheet to drain. 
7. When finished, place all fried mounds in a bowl.
8. In a small pan, boil sugar and water until a thick syrup forms or drops like a thread from a spoon.
9. Pour the hot syrup over the goolab jamoon and stir until evenly coated.
10. Cool, dust with icing sugar, if you want it sweeter, and serve.