Badusha
Preparation Time
30 minutes
Cooking Time
40 minutes
Difficulty Level
moderate
Meal Type
Dessert
Serves 10
Key Ingredients
- Ghee, for the dough
About This Recipe
Badusha (balushahi) is the North Indian sweet made for weddings and Diwali: maida dough rubbed with ghee, shaped into dimpled rounds, fried low in ghee and soaked in sugar syrup. Maida is refined wheat flour, so the figures below stand on whole wheat values, and that makes the fibre read a little high. The dimple in the middle is not decoration; it keeps the centre thin so the badusha cooks through.
The dough is never kneaded, only brought together, because the ghee-rubbed crumble is what opens into flaky layers. The fry is low and slow, deep golden rather than pale, so the inside cooks before the outside colours; a fast, hot fry leaves the middle raw.
The syrup is cooked to one string: thin enough to soak in, thick enough to set as a glaze. For a rava-based sweet that keeps the same ghee warmth on the dry side, our rava ladoo recipe roasts the rava instead of frying it.
Ingredient List
Serving Size:
1x
2x
3x
Dough
- Maida (refined wheat flour) — 2 cup
- Ghee, for the dough — 4 tbsp
- Baking Soda — 1/4 tsp
- Curd (dahi) — 1 tbsp
- Cold water — 1/4 cup
- Salt — 1 pinch
For frying
- Ghee for deep frying — 500 ml
- Ghee absorbed while frying — 4 tbsp
Syrup
- White sugar — 100 g
- Water — 1/2 cup
- Cardamom Powder — 1/4 tsp
- Lemon juice — 1/2 tsp
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Serving Suggestions
Serve badusha at room temperature with a cup of hot chai or filter coffee; at Diwali it sits on the sweet plate beside laddus and kaju sweets. One badusha is a full sweet, rich enough on its own. Store them in a tin once the glaze has set.
Tips for Cooking Badusha
The ghee-rubbed crumble is the whole texture: rub until it clumps when pressed, then bring the dough together without kneading. Fry low and slow, deep golden, so the middle cooks before the crust colours. Let the badushas cool fully before the syrup; warm ones drink too much syrup and turn soggy. Cook the syrup to one string, no further, or it sets hard instead of glazing.
Chef’s Note
Badusha is judged by the bite: flaky outside, moist inside, with the syrup glazed on rather than dripping. One badusha comes to about 224 kcal, counting the maida, the ghee in the dough and the frying, and all the sugar in the syrup, on the assumption that the badushas drink it up.
Per serving (approx.): 224 kcal, protein 2.5 g, carbs 26 g, fat 12 g, fibre 2.7 g. Computed from IFCT 2017 / USDA values for the listed quantities. Measures: 1 cup = 240 ml, 1 tbsp = 15 ml, 1 tsp = 5 ml.
Happy Cooking
!!
ByCOWBERRY
Apr 22, 2026
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