New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Recipe by Mother Mudakari, originally from August 1977 Brijabasi Spirit (& just now updated by her)

Utensils:
1 brass wok (or a deep, heavy-bottomed pot)
1 slotted spoon
1 deep pot (for sugar water)
1 mixing bowl
Ingredients: (Makes about 20-25) Sugar water-1 part sugar* to 1 part water Dough-2 cups powdered milk (not lumpy)NOTE: Carnation or other instant is not suitable. The
best type is the NON-INSTANT powder that is sold in
health food/organic stores, co-ops, or distributors.
2 teaspoons ghee
lukewarm water
2 quarts fresh ghee for cooking
STEP ONE
Make at least 10 cups of sugar water solution. Bring it to a boil and then shut off the heat. Keep hot by covering the pot.

STEP TWO
Mix 2 tsps. of ghee with the powder­ed milk. Moisten by slowly adding luke­warm water until you have a nice dough which is not too wet or too dry. Moist­ening your hands with a little ghee, pinch off the dough and roll into 1/2” balls that are perfectly round and have no cracks.

STEP THREE
Put enough fresh ghee in the wok un­til it is about 1/2 full. Put ghee on low heat and then drop in one test ball. If you can hear the ghee crackle, it’s too hot.

STEP FOUR
Place all the balls in the wok, Stir gently every few minutes to keep from sticking to the bottom. Within 10 minutes tiny bubbles should start rising from underneath them and they should bob to the surface. If after 10 minutes they do not rise, increase the heat a little until the bubbles form. When they have all risen, stir them constantly with the slotted spoon. Rotate them in the ghee so that all of them blow up and cook ev­enly. After about 40 minutes of stirring, when they are a nice shiny (not dark) brown, test one: strain off the excess ghee with the slotted spoon and drop the ball into hot sugar water. If it col­lapses, it’s not done, so cook the rest a little longer.

Optional: When they have cooled to lukewarm, add
two drops of food-grade rosewater to the syrup.
The most important thing to remem­ber is to have warm ghee, never hot. The balls can sit for a while and you can al­ways increase the heat little by little later on, but they must be given 10 min­utes to slowly use. If they cook too fast at the beginning they will be hard. Nice gulab jamins can be squeezed like sponges, without breaking. Simply stir nicely for 40 minutes.

* This recipe was written when white sugar was the
temple standard. I now recommend boxed raw Hawaiian
(Maui) sugar that is available in many chain stores,
although I have never tried the recipe with it. I do
not recommend Sucanat or other strong-tasting sugars.