Badam Puri - A layered, soft-yet-crispy sweet

At lunch table, when we were discussing about what sweet dish to prepare for Deepavali, someone suggested Badam Puri. And immediately the memories of my first birthday after marriage came up. MIL had prepared a very tasty meal of Peas Pulav and Badam Puris for me. I had happily hogged all that I could.

I remembered that and decided that Badam Puri would be the sweet for one of the days of Deepavali. I just couldn’t resist my temptation to have those slightly crisp, golden colored, sugar coated melting sweet, but I had no choice but to wait till the festival. This sweet is generally made in weddings, but I bet home-made version cannot just beat the taste and is also healthier, mainly because we use ghee at home instead of vanaspathi (dalda).

I learnt making it from my MIL, and it did come out very well.

Here’s the recipe...

Badam Puri

Preparation time : 20 min Cooking time : 20-25 min Makes : ~20 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