Happy New Year 2012!
The first day of the new year is always very ambitious. I like to ensure that I do all the things that I love to do since I have a superstition that what I d
o on the first day of the year is what I will do most for the rest.
(So, as you can guess, I dont clean much.)
I woke up today with a craving for sweet and like a typical housewife in the US I have not much choice but to make what I feel like eating.
Besan Laddu is not something that I would normally pick in a sweet store and thats the reason I decided to make it.
What you need to make Besan Laddu (To make 12)
- Channa dal powder / Besan / Kadle hittu - 3 cups (cup you would serve curry in a thali)
- Fine Semolina / Sooji / Sanna Rave - 1/2 cup
- Ghee - 1 cup
- Milk - 1/2 cup
- Powdered Sugar - 2 cups
- Cardamom/Elaichi/Yellakki - 2 pods, powdered (1/2 tsp)
- Cashews - 1 for each Laddu
Preparation to make Besan Laddu (Time : 2 min)
- Mix the besan and rava together
- Powder sugar and elaichi in a mixie and keep aside
Method to make Besan Laddu (Time : 45 mins)
- Place a heavy bottomed vessel or kadai on a stove on simmer(low heat)
- Heat the ghee in a kadai
- Once ghee is warm, fold in the besan rava mixture
- The besan rava ghee mixture will cook in low heat for around 30-40 mins till raw smell of besan is gone
- Keep the heat low else it may prematurely burn the mixture
- Keep stirring it once in a while so that it gets evenly cooked
- Let the dough cool for 5 mins once cooked
- Grind together the mixture, sugar, milk for a couple of seconds till well mixed
- You could also mix manually with a spatula if you do not want extra mixie cleaning chore
- Let the dough cool
- Grease hand lightly with ghee and form balls from the dough
- Stick a cashew into each laddu and voila besan laddu is ready!
My fundas
- Replace cashews with pistachio or almond pieces
- You could break cashews into small pieces and fold it into the dough. Makes the laddu crunchy.
