Diwali Delicacy: 5 minute Besan Laddoos

Ta da....presenting a couple of Diwali delicacies for you after the long silence.

Talking about Laddoos, i have never been too fond of them, except for Moti Choor Laddoo, which I would never dream of making at home. Any part of India and you'll find several varieties of them made with a variety of flours, and methods. As far as I can understand, for any laddoo made from using flour, the flour needs to be roasted till aromatic and during the roasting process, a certain amount of fat like ghee is used to cook the flour while roasting. Some more fat is used to bind the sweetened roasted flour into round shapes and a laddoo is born.

Not being the Laddoo liking girl, and my husband also not being a guy who is especially fond of them, I have never tried making them. When this particular discussion on Diwali treats went on and on about the quick and easy, microwave besan laddoos, I had to make this to take to my parents and aunts for Diwali, because this is something they all love.

Each batch makes 10. The first batch I followed the recipe to the T, just increasing the microwave time as the flour did not seem roasted to my satisfaction as per the given time in the recipe. In the final stage of binding it into laddoos, I realised that the ghee quantity can be considerably reduced from the original 1/3rd cup as I have seen the laddoos made in my family to be much drier.

Microwave Besan Laddoos
Active time: 5-7 minutes
Makes: 10 pieces
Category: Festival sweet
Source: Adapted from Samsung Microwave recipes

Ingredients
1 cup besan [gram flour]
1/4 cup ghee
1/2 cup powdered sugar (sold in Bombay during festival times as 'Pithi Saakhar')
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
10 halves of cashew nuts fried in a little ghee for decoration

Directions
1. In a large microwave safe bowl, mix the besan and ghee. Microwave on HIGH for 5 minutes stirring well every one minute. [increase 2 more min if your machine power is low]

2. Once the flour seems slightly darker in colour and richly aromatic, remove from oven and allow to cool completely. This will take upto half an hour.

3. Once cooled, add 1/2 cup powdered sugar [NOT icing sugar], with cardamom powder into the roasted flour. Knead well to mix and shape into 10 balls pressing a slice of fried cashew on top.

4. These will harden as they cool. Store in airtight container.


This is my entry to Meeta's Monthly Mingle - Traditional Feasts and well as Anna's [Morsel and Musings] Festive Fair 2007.

Tee at Bhatukli has blogged about Microwave Besan Laddoos too.

The next Diwali Delicacy is a joint project between me and Raaga. I shared the recipe with her and we decided to do it together in our respective kitchens. It was fun, though we did not do it on the same day together. I made it on Saturday and she's just done making it so that's coming up in the next post. Keep guessing!