Mix together water, sugar and crushed cardamoms in a pot.
Boil the syrup until it turns slightly sticky. Turn off the stove before it goes to a 1 string consistency.

If it reaches a 1 string consistency, then add 2 tbsp of water and mix. Add rose water and mix. Set aside to keep it hot.

Making balls
Mix together flour, milk powder and soda in a bowl. Either sieve it or mix uniformly.Add ghee to it. Mix well.

In a small bowl, mix together lemon juice or yogurt and 2 tbsp milk. Pour 1.5 tbsp of this to the flour mixture. begin to bring the flour together to make a dough. If the dough is too dry, add little more milk & curd. Do not add a lot. Use only as needed.

The dough turns sticky. Grease your fingers and make a ball. The dough must not be soggy. It must hold the shape well.

Divide to 14 to 18 equal sized portions. Grease your hands and roll to smooth balls. They must be smooth without any cracks or lines otherwise you will find many cracks on the gulab jamuns. Keep them covered.

How to make gulab jamun
Heat up the pan with ghee or oil on a medium heat.

Also check if the syrup is hot. If it is not hot, heat it up a bit. It must be hot and not very hot.

When the ghee is just medium hot, add the balls. Make sure the oil is not very hot else the gulab jamuns will brown without cooking well. To check the right temp, you can drop a small piece of dough in the oil. It must rise slowly without changing it's colour. If it rise rapidly then you will need to cool the oil a bit before frying.

Fry the balls on a medium flame until golden. Keep stirring gently to fry them uniformly.

Add them to the hot syrup. Allow them to rest for 3 hours and serve.
Garnish gulab jamun with chopped almonds.