India has a wide variety of sweet dishes, and it’s difficult to say which one is favoured by the masses. Gulab Jamun has always been my go to dessert and I am sure it’s safe to say, that this one is a crowd pleaser. With so many festivals and dishes being prepared around every state, city, and household, I call Gulab Jamun an ocassion free delicacy (if thats a category).

A dessert that dates back to medieval India. It’s believed that a Khansama from Shah Jahan’s royal kitchen was inspired by a Persian/Turkish dish and that gave birth to ‘our’ Gulab Jamun. Fascinatingly, the Persian sweet delight ‘Bamieh’ and the Turkish ‘Tulumba’ are both quite similar to the Gulab Jamun in terms of flavor, texture and ingredients.

Ideally the dough balls must be soaked in rose scented water but with increasing popularity and to please every taste bud, the rose syrup was replaced by sugar one. So, I wanted my Gulab Jamun to ‘soak in history’ hence the use of scented rose syrup. Uplifting it with use of chocolate, thats how I decide to please the taste buds. The use of salted caramel is to compensate for the missing sugar syrup, because hey, I can be my own Khansama.

Fact: The term Gulab Jamun, is derived from Persian words gul (flower) and ab (water), referring to the rose water scented syrup. Jamun is the Hindi-Urdu word for the Indian fruits that are similar in shape and size to a typical Gulab Jamun.