Balushahi Recipe

Balushahi is a popular Indian sweet where a round patty of pastry is deep-fried and dipped in a thick flavoured sugar syrup to coat it well. Known by its various names throughout the Indian subcontinent such as Balushahi mithai or Badusha, it is always a popular choice of Indian sweet for festivals and celebrations.

Indian sweet recipes can be tricky but with a couple of basic tricks up on the sleeve, one can master it nonetheless. And, this balushahi recipe taught me that. Hence, this post will have everything to get the perfect balushahi sweet, and also the things that can go wrong!

How to make Balushahi?

Indian sweets are a tricky business unless you have a 100% fool-proof recipe. So this time, before I tried making Balushahi sweet for the second time, I studied hard to get it right.

I have already had a disastrous experience once before, so I knew what would work and what wouldn’t. I went through at least a dozen recipes online, but somehow I wasn’t convinced of their outcome. The images looked super inviting, but my previous misadventure always made me a sceptic.

Finally, I started asking around my family and combining their methods of making resources available online, so I could get a perfect batch of Balushahi sweets for us.

Ingredients to make Balushahi

• All-purpose Flour or Maida
• Baking Soda – only a pinch, but I felt it was necessary
• Yoghurt
• Ghee or Clarified Butter – alternate would be butter or margarine.
• Green Cardamom or Elaichi
• Sugar
• Water
• Saffron
• Oil to fry – Dalda or vegetable fat would also be good

Now I have already told you what are the things that you should bear in mind and the things you need for this recipe. Now I will share what are things THAT COULD GO WRONG when you are trying a recipe for Balushahi at your home for the first time.

Steps to make Balushahi at home easily

• Take the saucepan and mix the sugar and water in it. Add the Saffron threads. Place this on heat and boil till the sugar dissolves completely.
• Once the sugar has dissolved, using a spoon check if it makes 2 strings when you pinch some syrup between your thumb and index finger. If it does, it is ready. Turn off the heat.
• Combine flour, baking soda, green cardamom powder, and ghee. Rub the ghee in.
• Now, add the yoghurt and knead it into a dough. It would be a dry-ish and tight dough.
• Keep it covered with a damp cloth for 5 minutes.
• Get the oil for frying ready. Keep it on the lowest heat.
• Divide the dough into 10 equal parts. Roll them into a ball and then press it at the centre to make a dent.
• Now, fry them in batches till they turn golden brown. Once you take them out of the oil, drop them gently in the warm sugar syrup. Turn them over gently so that the syrup coats them evenly and leave them for 2-3 minutes. Then take them out and let them dry on a wire rack.
• Serve them once they have cooled down completely.

Tips to make perfect Balushahi sweet

• Indian sweets or Mithai making is all about proportion and exact quantity. The quality of ingredients can make a whole lot of difference.
  For instance, the dough for Balushahi needs yoghurt, but I had to add a bit more than what was written, probably because the one I was using was thicker
• I am not sure if my folks use Baking Soda, but I did. And, it didn’t disappoint me at all
• Once the dough for Balushahi is ready, there is a small resting period during which the Baking Soda gets activated with yoghurt. This is very important to make the pastry flaky
• The frying has to be done in mildly warm oil. This is of utmost importance. We want to cook the Balushahi all the way through so that you don’t get a lumpy centre. So, drop the balushahi dough balls in warm oil allow them to sizzle and then get fried for the next 25-30 minutes for each batch.
• Each batch has to be fried very slowly. Also, do not crowd the oil. Fry a small batch of a couple of them at a time
• The sugar syrup has to be thick. So that it coats the hot fried Balushahi but doesn’t seep in immediately, thus making the centre soggy
• Once the Balushahi cools down completely, the outside crust will become candied and crispy. That is the ideal texture

Things that can go wrong while trying a recipe for Balushahi & Troubleshooting

I guess I have blundered enough times while trying to make some Balushahi, which qualifies me to tell you how and where you can go wrong.

Indian sweets aren’t easy to master. They are quite temperamental. Unlike cakes and cookies, they need to be handled very gently. I started trying my hand in Indian mithai making with this recipe and faltered badly.

If you are following me on Instagram, you must have seen me share the disaster stories. The moment I dropped the Balushahi dough balls in the oil, they disintegrated and spread out in the oil. I had to sieve the oil to get them out.

Thankfully, I didn’t attempt frying the rest of the dough but rather pressed them and baked them into gorgeous buttery cardamom-flavoured cookies. (They turned out AWESOME!)

I didn’t attempt this recipe for the next two months, rather I read a lot about it. I realised that my dough didn’t bind enough and was too crumbly and that is why it crumbled as soon as it hit the oil.

So, use the exact amount of ingredients and in the exact form to get the best results.

After you finish frying one batch of Balushahi, take the oil off the heat if you think it’s too hot. Let the oil cool down a bit before you get it back on the heat and fry the next batch.

If you dropped the next batch of Balushahi dough balls in hot oil, it would cook the outer shell too quickly leaving the centre uncooked, and doughy.

A very important aspect of making Indian mithais is to understand it. When you are watching a particular recipe video, try to understand the texture of the dough or the consistency of the syrup. So that when you try making it in your kitchen you can rest assured that you are proceeding in the right direction.

More popular Indian sweets recipes

• Instant Gulab Jamun recipe using Milk Powder
• Instant Kalakand recipe using Condensed Milk
• Instant Malpoa recipe
• Gajar ka Halwa recipe without using Khoya
• Instant Gajar ka Halwa recipe
• Atta ka Halwa recipe
• Kesar Peda
• Sweet Boondi
• Rasbhari
• Khaja or Chiroti
• Chanar Jilipi or Paneer Jalebi
• Pranhara Sandesh
• Kesar Peda
• Kesar Motichoor Ladoo

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This post was first published on October 21, 2020, and later republished on September 16, 2024, with a more elaborate description of the recipe.

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