Kalo Jam / Kala Jamun
By Rownak Jahan,
September 27, 2012
Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook time: 35 minutes
Yield: 16-18
Kalo jam/ kala jamun is a unique Bangladesh Sweet. It has similar taste like lalmohon/ golap jamun. But kalo jam / kala jamun has darkened texture because of using sugar and more firm. I tried to simplify the process of making kalojam / kala jamun. To me making any sweet is easy if you can keep or maintain temperature, using a range cooker can help you to achieve this easily. So temperature needs to be medium and it needs to be slow fry. If you fry it on high heat, its outside will be cooked; inside will be raw which will make hard sweet.
Ingredients:
For Kalojam:
• 1 and 1/4 cups full cream milk powder
• ¾ cup semolina
• ½ cup self raising flour
• 2 tablespoon sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg powder
• 150 ml thicken cream
• Red food color(optional)
• Oil to deep fry(I like to use 2/3 oil and 1/3 ghee)
• ½ cup Mawa
For Syrup:
• 3 cups sugar
• Mace
How to make:
1. First put a sauce pan on heat with 4 cups water, sugar and mace. When sugar is melt and syrup comes into boiling point boiling point, turn off the heat. Keep aside. We need lukewarm syrup to soak the sweet.
2. Mix milk powder, self raising flour, semolina, nutmeg, sugar and cream. Add thicken cream little by little and crumble it up. Don’t make it soft. It will nt be like dough. It will be like crumbly cheese (chana).
3. Divide the dough into 16-18 balls and make each into cylinder shape.
4. Heat the pan on medium with oil for deep fry. When I say deep fry that it means enough oil to deep the sweet while frying. Check the oil to put a little piece of dough in the oil if it sizzles and comes up slowly .It means the oil is ready.
5. When oil is ready (don’t make oil too hot, we will slow fry them), put the sweet in the oil with care and fry it all side till it becomes dark brown.
6. Take out the sweet from oil and straight put into lukewarm syrup. Repeat the same step for rest of sweet.
7. Soak sweet at least ½ hr. Take out the sweets from syrup and roll in mawa.
8. Serve kalo jam / kala jamun chilled.
Tips :
1. If the dough becomes soft add milk powder and self raising flour 4:1 ration. Such add 1/2 tsp flour and 2 tsp milk powder. on the other hand for hard dough add cream.
Is there a telepathic communication, I wonder coz only last night my Filipino friend Madelein asked d recipe for Kalojam which she had tasted at my tea party in Japan. We enjoyed beef bhuna and nun with kalojam and bangladeshi tea. She never forgets the taste of Bengali cuisine and repeatedly asked for d recipes. As in d last night she asked to share kalojam but I gave Rasmalai- could not find kalojam. She also searched…and this morning interestingly we found kalojam! Don’t u call it telepathy? Thanks for d recipe.
I love to have telepathic communication with my readers. It will my pleasure to maintain this communication. Thanks.
I was unaware of your webpage in 2012. But I’m here in 2022 because that’s what my project is about.
Please inform me what is self raising flour?
Self raising flour is ready made flour with baking powder. You can find it in flour section in any super market. 1 cup plain flour, 1 and 1/4 teaspoons baking powder and 1/4 salt need to make self raising flour. But I always use ready made one. Thanks.
Hi
can you please tell what is mace? And when to put the color?
Thank you…
Mace is joytri. you can find in Indian grocery. Color is optional .. put it when you are mixing dry ingredients. Thanks.
hi,Rownak.what is thicken cream?can I use milk?
I never use milk but I think that it is possible to use milk. need to use less amount milk and thicken cream give it better taste. Thanks.
Thanks.u don’t tell me what is thicken cream.
thicken cream is one kind of cream which is used for whipped cream. It is available in every supermarket. Though I am not very sure about Bangladesh.
Hi Rawnak, is it must to use mace and nutmeg powder? what are their function? If I don’t use these will it taste different. Please let me know. Thanks.Also recipes works well for me but the rosogolla I failed to make several times. Don’t know why.
mace and nutmeg is optional..it enhances the flavour. After making more than 30 times perfect rosogolla still I feel Rosogolla is the trickiest one. need to be exact moist in chhana and exact heat. but once you make perfect one, you will never fail again. So dont be disappointed, try one more time.And one more thing if your rosogolla breaking into pieces make it rosomalai or sondesh with it. if it too hard, cut them then put into malai. hope it will help you not to stop making Rosogolla. Thanks
P.s. making rosogolla today. If you can come my house, I will show you from begin to end.
Hi Rawnak, Thanks for your comment. May try rosogolla in near future but can’t fly to brisbane from perth now though I wish if I could.
Hi ,I wish I could fly and learn all the misti from you.Feel like eating your kalojam.I have never tried kalojam before.but your recipe seems to me easy.when read or see any misti it seems very easy but it needs practice and some tricks.
Hi rawnak, what is plain flour.
Honey plain flour means usual flour(moida).
Apu, my kalojaam turned hard like a brick. Is it because of the flour? So disappointed in myself :/
Reasons behind hard sweet are mostly cooking temperature and dense of the dough. dough needs to be soft dough and temperature should medium heat. why are you worried about flour? have you used self raising flour?
Hi.. i love your recipes. I wanted to know if you need to put the heat on for syrup when soaking thesweets for half an hour. Thanks. Please keep sharing your wonderful recipes.
you dont need to heat the syrup but syrup needs to be lukewarm when you are add hot kalo jam in it. Thanks.
Hi, i have made this today. Absolutely amazing! I was very scared to try it at first as it is completely new. But with our detailed instructions i was able to pull it off! Thank you sooooo much. 🙂
thanks to Allah. I am very happy to your success.
Hi rownak! I’ve pretty much all the ingredients to make it. But you never mentioned when to use mace. Could you edit the recipe or just reply here? Ive made lal mohon last week. It was so rich in taste. It was an absolute easy recipe. Everyone loved it. Thank you!
Thanks A lot. I used mace in syrup. It is literally in first line. Somehow you missed it. Lal mohon and kalo jam are pretty same kind of recipe with bit of twist. When I started my journey to make Sweets , lal mohon was my venture. Happy to hear that you liked it.
My bad! After posting my last post i was going through the recipe again n i figured out the mace use. Sorry about that. But i typed another post but without posting i closed the page. Ive made kalo jam with all the ingredients you’ve mentioned. Making the so tricky. I messed up. It was too soft to work with n sticky. But ive managed to make it right. It turned out good. alhamdulillah! Thanks a lot. I gotta ask you a lil thing. If you could add what to do when dough if too soft n sticky. It’ll help everyone. 🙂
If the dough becomes soft add milk powder and self raising flour 4:1 ration. Such add 1/2 tsp flour and 2 tsp milk powder. on the other hand for hard dough add cream. Thanks and most welcome.
I am not sure can I use 3/4 cup semolina or 3table spoon semolina . Please tell me.
3/4 cup semolina which will gives crumbly inside texture like chhana. You use less or skip it if you want. Then you need increase milk powder which will more smooth texture inside.main point milk powder and semolina will be 2 cups together. Thanks.
hi,
how r u ? i like ur recipe very much.its clear and easy to understand . i will try it at my home . thanks a lot . please keep in touch.
I am fine, thanks. Hope you are going good too. Love to keep in touch.
After frying , it was light brown in color…in the picture it is shown dark black color? How can I get this? Another thing, it is very soft after frying and after taken from syrup… How can I make it little bit more harder? Thank you.
if you add bit sugar in dough, you get darker colour.fry till it gets bit dark and if you want more firmer use bit more semolina. Thanks.
Salam. I like your recipes. I am a simple family guy live simply in New York City. When you come to New York come and visit us. Thanks.
Thanks for invitation Siraj Ud Doulah. Nowadays hard to find simple person, love to meet your family .
Do u know the
kalojam with chana?
Do you mean the recipe of Kalojam with chana? I know how to make Kalojam with chana. I wil try to post that soon. Thanks
Hi
Thanks for the recipes, 1st time i made kalojam, my hubby and my daughter loves it..when i made for dawat or i made for gift, all peoples loves it . Thank you very much Rownak. I am indonesian but my husband bangladeshi, so i learn all ur recipes. Alhamdulillah never failed, cz ur recipes very easy to follow.
Hi rownak API,I am newly married and have a great passion in cooking and live in Brisbane.I wish I could ever meet with you and have tried 20 times for kalojam but never succeeded but followed powdered milk and thikened cream process,its always soft and never came out perfect.But after seeing your recipe I feel like I would try yours first. Love your work.plz keep posting recipies.
Love
Hello when you say that you have to include the cream at the end in step #2 what does it mean? what cream? 2. Mix milk powder, self raising flour, semolina, nutmeg, sugar and cream.
Thicken cream its in ingredient lists.