Gulab (and angoori) jamun have quickly become one of my favorite Indian desserts. These little ghee-fried milk balls are soaked in a saffron-cardamom-rose syrup, causing them to have a soft, melt-in-the-mouth texture. However, I find that setting up all of that ghee to fry with takes forever, and it’s really expensive too. Ghee is far from cheap, being clarified butter, which also takes a lot of effort to prep if you were trying to make it yourself to save a penny. My solution was to go a baked route, and that’s where the idea to make gulab jamun madeleines came about! What I love about madeleines are that they are these pretty, seashell-shaped cookie-cake-things, and they can be flavored and decorated in so many different ways! The possibilities are limitless! Which is why translating the flavors (and to a degree, the textures) of gulab jamun into a madeleine was a fun challenge. For starters, let’s dissect the batter. Gulab jamun is usually made as a dough from either khoya(milk solids) or milk powder, mixed with cream, some sort of binding agent(I might be killed for saying this, but I’ve been told pancake batter is used for some jamun recipes, and I personally have used all-purpose flour with a little bit of baking powder to great effect), and that is fried in ghee. Milk powder and ghee were my main takeaways here, and that went straight into the jamun batter. For the other component, it’s the syrup. Gulab jamun are fried in the ghee, then soaked in the syrup, which causes them to plump up, develop this tender texture, and a gorgeous floral flavor. I definitely had challenges initially with incorporating the syrup into the madeleines, but I opted for three solutions. The first being infusing the batter with saffron, rose water, and cardamom. And the other two became additional components with the madeleines.

To break down everything further, the madeleine batter is made with ghee and milk powder, as a reference to gulab jamun being made with milk solids and fried with ghee. I brushed the pans with ghee as well, which caused the madeleines to bake off with this golden-brown color. I usually use more flour in my madeleine dough, but I found doing so, with the milk powder, caused the centers of the first batch I made of these to be too dry, even after I introduced the syrup to them. So, I omitted some of the flour to help with that. Also with madeleines, it is important that you rest that batter after you pipe it into the pans. Resting, and more specifically, refrigerating the madeleines will allow them to form this sort of skin on the side that isn’t attached to the pan, which when baked, creates that gorgeous hump you want to see in properly baked madeleines. Now for the syrup. I made the gulab jamun syrup in the traditional way, and I did a few things with it. I soaked the madeleines with several injections of the syrup, that way when you bite into them, they will have a very similar consistency to gulab jamun. I also served them with a pipet of the syrup, just so that you can make sure with each bite, you can drizzle on more as you eat the madeleine. These were a lot of fun to make overall, and are a good alternative to making actual gulab jamun!

Makes 12 madeleines:
For the madeleines:
2 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp rose water
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
3 strands saffron
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup non-fat milk powder
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
4oz melted ghee

Begin whipping the eggs with sugar, vanilla, rose water, cardamom, and saffron until the mixture triples in volume – you want essentially ribbon-stage eggs. I whipped mine for about 5 minutes to achieve that consistency. Sift into that your flour, non-fat milk powder, baking powder, and salt first, folding that all in. Then to that, fold in your melted ghee. Once everything is incorporated, transfer to a piping bag.

Line a madeleine pan with cooking spray or more melted butter. Fill each mold about 3/4 the way full with your batter. Let the batter rest in the refrigerator for an hour, or freezer for 15 minutes. Bake the madeleines at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes.

For the gulab jamun syrup:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
6 strands saffron
1/2 tsp rose water
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
a pinch of salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp lemon or lime juice

In a pot, bring everything to a simmer, minus the vanilla and lemon/lime juice. Once the sugar is fully dissolved into the liquid, take off heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. Allow the syrup to cool before transferring into micro pipets. With the remaining syrup, using a micro pipet, inject the four micro pipets of the syrup into each madeleine, then serve the baked madeleines with an additional pipet of syrup.