Badam Puri

Ingredients

• All Purpose Flour (Maida) – 2 Cups
• Ghee – 1 ½ Tbsp
• Baking Powder – ½ teaspoon, optional
• Food color – 1 pinch/drop, preferably saffron or yellow
• Salt – a small pinch
• Cooking oil for deep frying
• Water

For Sugar Syrup:

• Sugar – 1 Cup
• Water 1 Cup

Method
Dough:
• In a bowl, add ghee, baking powder, salt and food color and beat it for 5-10 minutes continuously with your fingers
• Once the ghee forms a very smooth paste, add flour and mix thoroughly
• Add a little water and form a soft dough, neither too tight nor too loose
• Knead the dough for at least 8-10 minutes ensuring there are no cracks in it
Sugar Syrup:
• Meanwhile in another vessel mix water and sugar and boil it
• Food essence may be optionally added for enhanced aroma
• A pinch of color can be added as well for attractive color
Badam Puris:
• Now make small TT-ball sized balls out of the dough
• Roll out puris of about 4” diameter
• Fold it first into half and then again, making it 4 layered
• Slightly press it, using the rolling pin so that the layers are held closely
• Heat oil in a frying pan and fry these rolled and folded puris one by one in medium low flame till golden brown. The puris puff up and increase in size when fried.
• Drain excess oil by spreading it on a kitchen towel / tissue
• Drop the puris one by one as they are fried into the sugar syrup prepared
• After 5-6 minutes take out the sugar soaked puris from the syrup, in the order that they were dipped, and spread them out on a dry plate.
• The coated syrup is absorbed and the Badam-puris become dry in sometime.
Serve it immediately when still hot or after cooling

Tips n Tricks:
• Knead the dough enough to get a uniform texture
• The sugar syrup should be thicker than that for Gulab Jamuns, so that the puris do retain crispiness, yet absorb the sweetness
• Do not wait for too long after the syrup is made, as the syrup starts solidifying when cooled.