Imarti is a popular Indian sweet made by deep frying lentil batter which is then soaked in cardamom and rose flavored sugar syrup.

Recipe Snapshot

  • Prep time: 20 minutes
  • Cook time: 30 minutes
  • Total time: 50 minutes
  • Yield: 8
  • Category: Dessert
  • Cuisine: Indian

Ingredients

  • ½ cup urad dal dhuli (soaked overnight (split black gram without skin))
  • 1 tablespoon rice flour or cornstarch
  • orange food color
  • ghee (clarified butter, for frying the imartis)

sugar syrup

  • 1 cup granulated white sugar
  • ⅓ cup + 1 teaspoon water
  • ½ teaspoon rose water
  • 3-4 green cardamom pods (seeds crushed using mortar & pestle)
  • 3-4 strands of saffron
  • ½ teaspoon lemon juice
  • pistachios (crushed to garnish)

Method

  1. Soak dhuli urad dal overnight or for a minimum of 6 hours in enough water.
  2. Transfer the soaked dal to your blender and adding little water at a time, blend the dal to a fine paste.
  3. Transfer to a bowl and add food color and rice flour to it.
  4. Using your hands or a spoon, mix the batter for 3-4 minutes continuously. Set aside for 15-20 minutes.
  5. While the batter is resting for 15 minutes, make the sugar syrup.
  6. Add sugar in a pan on medium heat and add water just enough to cover the sugar. Stir continuously till sugar is dissolved.
  7. After 4-5 minutes the syrup will develop a one string consistency which means that if you put a drop of the syrup between your thumb and index finger and move the fingers apart, you will notice the syrup forming one string/thread (see picture above for reference).
  8. At this stage add rose water, crushed cardamom seeds, saffron strands, lemon juice and switch off the heat. The sugar syrup is now ready for dipping in the imartis.
  9. Pour ghee into a kadai on medium-low heat.
  10. While the ghee is getting hot, transfer the batter into the piping bag or a squeeze bottle. I used wilton tip#10 here, you can simply use a ziplock bag and make a small cut in it to pipe the imartis.
  11. Pipe the imartis into the ghee once it's mildly hot. Make sure ghee is not super hot else you won't be able to pipe the batter, keep the heat at medium-low.
  12. Make one round with the batter and then start making small circles adjacent to one another on top of that round that you first made. [See pictures of how the front and back of imarti should look like in the post above].
  13. Once you have piped the batter, increase heat to medium and fry till crisp from both sides.
  14. Once fried, take out the imarti, shaking off the excess ghee.
  15. Dip the fried imarti in the sugar syrup for few seconds. Remember the sugar syrup should be warm at this point.
  16. Flip the imarti to dip the other side in the sugar syrup too.
  17. Remove from the sugar syrup and transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone mat.
  18. Garnish with crushed pistachios immediately.

Kiyaan Singh’s Kitchen Note

Keep this recipe as a working base: cook once as written, then adjust spice, texture, and serving style for your own table.