Kitchen DIY: Besan laddoo recipe for your school kids
Besan Ladoo or Besan ke Laddu is a popular Indian sweet made from gram flour or besan, powdered sugar or ground jaggery and clarified butter (ghee). It’s orange-yellow, round, heavy and delightfully tasty. Besan laddoo is a typical festival delicacy all over India. Besan is gram flour made from split and husked black chickpeas or chana dal. There’s also the white chick peas variety (sattoo) which is very different in texture and flavour. This year, get your kids involved with this simple recipe. It’s ideal for keeping a curious 10, 11 or 12-year-old engaged all afternoon, with supervision.
Ingredients
You need Besan, ghee and sugar, of course to make the laddoo. Here is the list of ingredients.
- 200 grams of besan
- 125 grams to 130 grams of ghee
- 175 grams of sugar or 200 grams of jaggery
- 1 tea spoon cardamom powder
- Optional: 10 to 12 cashews and about 20 raisins, and you can add other nuts such as almonds if you want
How to make besan ka laddu
Here are the steps to make the laddu. Don’t leave the heating and handling of fire parts to the kids. However, but they can actively participate in mixing, stirring and forming the besan balls.
- Take a heavy kadai or sauce pan and keep on a low heat. Add the 200 gm of besan into the warmed kadhai
- Dry roast on low to medium heat, stirring constantly so that it does not burn. If it gets lumpy, break them evenly while stirring
- Once it has roasted for about 12 minutes, it’s colour will be much darker.
- Now add the ghee and mix thoroughly, stirring constantly for about 12 to 15 minutes
- Once some ghee floats to the top, remove the pan and keep it on a heat resistant surface.
- Add the sugar or jaggery now and stir it in, making sure there are no lumps. Put it back on a low flame
- Keep stirring as you drop the nuts, raisins etc into the mix.
- Remove from the flame and allow to cool
- Use your hands to make laddus from the mix