Badusha/Balushahi

Delicious Badusha/Balushahi a traditional Indian sweet made for the festival of light Diwali. Sugar coated fried dough served with pistachio nuts.

Now days I am not making any Indian sweets as my hubby is diabetic. Among my kids, my daughter like to taste some while my son is not at all interested in it as it has no chocolate in it. Badusha is famous Indian sweet made during Diwali” festival of lights” This year we are not celebrating Diwali as I lost my father- in-law. Badusha was on my list of sweets to try, and I decided to try it out yesterday. It is called Badusha in South India and Balusahahi in Northern part of India.

As with most Indian sweets this one also has no exact format and everybody makes their own version. When I watched the bakery guys making this sweet, they used only oil; I know ghee is expensive to make a profit. Then there are the home cooks who only use the butter. Then there is one with ghee, some with oil and some with yogurt. If you ask me what is your version? My answer will be I used butter and yogurt, keeping in line with puff pastry.

Ingredients for making Badusha

You need 

Flour: All purpose flour/ maida. I used unbleached all purpose flour, you can use bleached one too. 

Sugar : Sugar is added into the dough as wellas sugar syrup 

Butter: Butter gives flakiness of the pastry 

Yogurt: is used to give nice tang as well as tenderize the dough 

Saffron and cardamom : These are two spices used in the recipe, both are aromatic and exotic. 

Baking powder and Baking soda : These are leaveners in making the badusha. 

Peanut oil : For frying the dough 

Lemon juice : This will prevent the crystalization of sugar syrup. 

I also don’t like it naming as Indian donut, sorry this one is not soft as donuts and it doesn’t have the shape of donuts. Uzhunu vada or Medu vada has a donut like shape. This one is soft but not soft as donuts.When sugar dries, it leaves a shining outer cover on the top. I like to serve crushed toasted salted pistachios.

This is really a simple sweet to make. First you need to make dough and then set aside for rest, and in that time makes sugar syrup.

1. Flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt                                                           

   2.  Flour mix with butter 

3. Mix everything to become bread crumbs                                                             

 4.  Mix with water to form dough 

5. Divide the dough like this                                                                 

  6. Shape the dough into ball 

6.Make  a small dent in the center                                                               

   7.  Fry it in oil like this 

8. Until it reaches golden brown                                                                   

9. In the mean time heat sugar and water to make sugar syrup 

10. Soak it in sugar syrup     

11. Arrange top with chopped pistachios 

Then heat oil and fry the badusha and while warm soak them into the sugar syrup so that sugar can sweep inside the badusha. I made only a small quantity of about 10. If you follow few steps correctly you can make perfect Badusha. While growing up I had it only from bakeries as my mom did not make it at home. I prefer to make a simple version without much add on’s. Give it a try and you will like it.

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Badusha/Balushahi

Here is the delicious Badusha traditional South Indian Sweet you can make it at home.

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Cook Time40 minutes mins

Total Time45 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: Badhusha, Balushahi

Servings: 10

Calories: 25kcal

Ingredients

• 1 cup/130g all purpose flour/ maida
• 2 tablespoon /25g butter
• 2 tablespoon /50 g yogurt/curd
• ½ teaspoon/2g sugar
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of baking powder
• 2 tablespoon water
• ¾ cup/150g sugar
• ¾ cup water
• Pinch of saffron
• 3 cardamom pods crushed
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• Peanut oil for frying

Instructions

• In a medium bowl add flour, baking powder, ½ teaspoon sugar, baking soda,
• and mix well to this add softened butter, yogurt. And mix well to resemble bread crumbs.
• Then slowly add water to make rough dough. And set aside for resting.
• Then make sugar syrup by boiling ¾ cup sugar and ¾ cup water until it reaches 200F or single string consistency. When it starts boiling add crushed cardamom and saffron and lemon juice.
• Adding lemon juice will help the sugar syrup to remain sugar syrup and won’t let crystallizes while cooling. Set aside
• Divide the dough into 10 equal pieces
• make a round using your two palm then slightly flatten them into 4 inch round with a depression in the center
• . Repeat and finish the entire dough and make it into 10 flatten rounds
• Heat oil in thick bottomed pan, then when it reaches 350F to check oil is ready add a pinch of dough and it comes back to the top then it is done. Then IMMEDIATELY SWITCH OFF THE FLAME. Carefully add prepared flatten rounds.
• When it starts floating its own on top of oil and switch on the stove and continue to cook until it becomes golden brown in color flip occasionally so that both sides cooks really well.
• Remove from the oil and place it in kitchen towel to remove excess oil. Then immediately soak it in warm sugar syrup for 10 minutes.
• You need to make sure that sugar syrup is warm otherwise it won’t penetrate into the cooked badusha. Remove from the sugar syrup and serve with salted toasted pistachio which is really nice combo.
• Enjoy

Notes

Author Swathi( Ambujom Saraswathy)

Nutrition

Calories: 25kcal | Carbohydrates: 1g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 2g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 1mg | Sodium: 57mg | Potassium: 13mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 100IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 7mg | Iron: 1mg

Tried this recipe?Mention @nidhinikhil or tag #zestysouthindiankitchenrecipes!

Swathi

This is Swathi ( Dr. Ambujom Saraswathy Ph.D) from Zesty South Indian Kitchen who loves to explore cuisines from all over the world. Whenever possible I try to to give an Indian touch to several of the world cuisine, and has weakness for freshly baked bread.  All the recipes you see here are created by me and approved after taste-test by my family.