Badushah Recipe

          Badushah is one of my favorite sweets, I have tried this once long time back, before blogging days, and it had turned out good back then. after that I made it only now. I again followed the same recipe from Mallika Badrinath's cookbook, except, after checking many blogs, I added a little curd while making the dough. For those of you who don't know the taste of this delicious sweet, Badushah tastes a lot similar like doughnuts/ donuts, with a subtle sweetness. At the start, making badushahs might look like a big task, but once you get a hang of it, you'll agree with me that it's one of the easiest sweets, and also, making those beautiful swirls is actually very easy..

Need To Have

• Maida/All Purpose Flour - 3/4 cup
• Butter - 2 tablespoon
• Oil - 1+1/2 teaspoon
• Curd - 1 tablespoon
• Baking Soda - 1/8 teaspoon
• Salt - 1/8 teaspoon
• Sugar - 1/2 teaspoon
• Oil For Deep Frying

For The Sugar Syrup

• Sugar - 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons
• Water - 3 tablespoons
• Cardamom - 2
• Lemon Juice - 1/2 teaspoon

Followed the video here for making the swirls around the badushah

Method

          Melt the butter, add the oil, curd, sugar, baking soda and salt and beat them well.

          Now add the maida and mix it well to form breadcrumb like mixture.

          Now adding a little water at a time, make a soft dough and knead it well for about 10 minutes and leave it covered for 10 minutes. Then divide into 10 portions ( I made small badushahs) and roll them out into smooth balls. Now at this stage you can either slightly flatten these balls, make a deep thumb impression in the middle or you can do these swirls. For making these swirls, just pinch out a little dough at the edges and then fold it downwards, then while turning the dough a little with one hand, with the other hand, keep pinching and turning the dough downwards, do the same with all the dough.

          Keep the shaped dough covered, in the meantime, make the sugar syrup and start heating the oil for frying the badushah. Take the sugar, add the water and heat it, keep mixing till the sugar dissolves, then stop mixing and keep cooking, checking at intervals, till the sugar syrup reaches the one string consistency. Switch off the stove, add the cardamom (powder the inner pods ) and the lemon juice, mix and keep.

          Now check the oil that we have started heating, when you drop a piece of dough, it should rise to the top immediately, at this stage, switch off the stove ( you read it right ) and add 3 or 4 shaped badushah, the oil would be sizzling, wait till the sizzling slows down to a few bubbles, then switch on the stove and keeping the heat at medium-low, cook till the badushah turns golden brown all over.

          Remove, drain the excess oil and immediately add the hot badushah to the sugar syrup and mix them well for the sugar syrup to coat all over. Now check the oil again, before adding the next set of shaped dough and do the same way. When you are adding the second set of fried badushah to the sugar syrup, remove the first ones and place them on a parchment or wax paper to cool down completely. Badushah tastes great once it's completely cooled and stays good for about 3 to 4 days.

Note
For testing single thread consistency for sugar syrup, take a drop between the tips of the thumb and fore finger, when you separate the fingers, it should form a thin string, or otherwise, another way of doing it, when you drop the syrup from a spoon, the last drop should fall slowly.
It's important to cook the badushah as mentioned above, otherwise, the outside will turn brown too fast and the inside will not be cooked.
I have used 2 to 3 tablespoons of water for mixing the dough, the dough should be soft and smooth and not dry.