GBBO 2019 Week 4 - "Dairy" - Vegan Gulab Jamun

Yep, I was not a big fan of the dairy week on GBBO - it's very difficult to bake a vegan version of bakes when the theme is dairy...So, what I did was take the showstopper of Indian milk sweets, and find a vegan version of one of these.

After trawling the internet for recipes, I came across an interesting version of the Indian dessert "Gulab Jamun", which traditionally contain a lot of powdered milk, and are deep-fried dough balls soaked in a spiced syrup. Instead, this recipe blended cashews, water and white breadcrumbs to make a dough - I was sceptical, but they held together when frying and after soaking, kept their shape!

They also took less than an hour to prepare and cook, and then just need to be left in a homemade spiced syrup (which only took 10 minutes to make from start to finish) for a few hours before serving.

If you don't like cardamom, you could replace the spice with, for example, a cinnamon stick or ginger, or even something like rose water.

So this is my dairy-free vegan version of the dairy week on GBBO.

Makes 14 (serves 3-4)

Ingredients:

For the dough balls:
300g (around 8 slices) white bread, with crusts, removed
75g (1/2 cup) cashews
125ml (1/2 cup) water

For the syrup:
375ml water
300g caster sugar
1 heaped tsp ground cardamom
1 tbsp lemon juice

Oil, for frying

Method:

1. Prepare the syrup by pouring the water, caster sugar, cardamom and lemon juice into a saucepan and bringing the mixture to a boil. Keep boiling for around 5 minutes, then take off the heat.

2. Make the dough balls by blending the cashews and water together to make a smooth paste. Blend the bread into fine breadcrumbs, and then add to the cashew paste mixture and bring the mixture together into a sticky ball of dough.

3. Divide the dough into 14 balls and roll between your hands until they are smooth.

4. Heat oil in a pan - I used a fairly large saucepan and poured in oil until it was about 2 inches high. Heat until the oil is 148c/300f.

5. Add the dough balls to the pan (4-6 at a time) carefully and fry, turning occasionally, until they are golden brown all over. Use a slotted to spoon to transfer the dough balls to drain on some kitchen paper.

6. When the syrup is warm (but not hot) add the dough balls to the syrup. Leave for at least three hours, turning the dough balls occasionally to ensure they have absorbed enough syrup.

7. Enjoy! These can be enjoyed if you heat the syrup up slightly before serving, but I think they're really nice eaten at room temperature as well!