The festival of Ganesh Chaturthi is just over in India. With Navratri and Diwali lined up, festive time will soon continue again. Here, at Slurrpy, we have great plans. We know, no Indian festival is complete without sweets. So, among others, we are all set to make homemade desserts: some traditional and some with a twist. Today, we tried out chocolate-filled Balushahis. This traditional festive sweet is great for any Indian festival. Although we garnished these with pistachios, you can add a splash of chocolate sauce over it. Instead of pistachios as a garnish, you can add many elements, such as colourful sprinkles, crushed candies or even for a change, “salted” peanuts!
With a little tweak, this sweet can look a little like a doughnut. Think on the presentation: the addition of chocolate and sprinkles will definitely make this sweet your kids’ festive favourite!
Chocolate Balushahi (Badusha)
Time taken: 2 h
Taste-o-meter: Sweet
Ingredients:
All-purpose flour / maida: 1.25 cup
Baking soda: 1/4 tsp
Salt: around 1/4 tsp
Ghee: 1/4 cup
Yogurt: 1/4 cup
Chocolate shavings: 2 cups
Ghee (or oil) for deep frying
Ingredients for thick sugar syrup:
Sugar: 1 cup
Water: 1/4 cup
Cardamom powder: 1/2 tsp
Ingredients for garnish:
Chopped pistachios: 1/4 cup
Method:
- Using your fingers, gently mix together the flour with the salt and the baking soda. Stir to combine the dry ingredients. Now add the ghee to this and keep mixing with your fingers, until you get coarse crumbs . Now add the yogurt and make a dough. Cover the dough with a wet muslin cloth and let it rest at room temperature for 40 min.
- After 40 min, divide the dough into equal-sized balls of the size of a large lemon. Flatten a bit and fill each of them with a little amount of chocolate shavings. Do not overstuff with the filling. Roll each of the flattened dough back into balls (withouut any cracks). Carefully, using your thumb, make a dent in the center of each dough. Press the bough very gently to flatten it slightly. Do not press too much, as undesirable cracks can develop.
- Once again, cover the indented portions with a wet cloth. Let the dough portions rest at room temperature for ten more minutes.
- In a deep kadhai, heat the ghee (or oil). Reduce the flame to medium and add a few balls (indented sides should be up). These balls should cook from both the sides. Do not get tempted to increase the flame, as this will cause the Badushahis to overcook from outside and still remain undercooked from inside.
- When the evenly fried Badushahi balls float up to the surface of the oil, flip the balls and fry on medium heat till the bottom of the balls get a dark brown colour.
- Remove the balls on an absorbent paper and continue deep-frying the rest of the indented dough balls in the same manner.
- For the sugar syrup, in a sauce pan, boil the water with sugar, stirring after every 2 min. Add in the cardamom powder at the end, and allow the sugar syrup to simmer until you get a single-thread consistency.
- One by one, dip each of the fried doughs in the sugar syrup until well-coated. Arrange on a big plate.
- Garnish the Chocolate Balushahis (Badushas) with chopped pistachios. The Balushahis are ready to eat when the sugar gets absorbed and hardens on the surface of the Badushahis.