Laddu is a popular Indian sweet made from various flours and shaped into small balls. It often includes nuts or dried fruit and is commonly given as a gift. Different varieties include boondi, besan, rava, and churma laddu, with various flours and ingredients.
Laddu is an Indian sweet made from any of several types of flour and shaped into small balls for serving. In English it is also sometimes spelled laddoo or ladoo. The dessert can be made with wheat and legume flours and often has nuts or dried fruit added. It is especially popular as a gift for holidays and special occasions.
One of the most popular varieties is boondi laddu. The main ingredient is gram flour, made from chickpeas. Gram flour, sometimes called besan, is mixed with milk to make a thick batter. The batter is then forced through a strainer into hot oil, forming small drops or balls of batter that cook quickly in the oil. Once all the drops are cooked and slightly cooled, they are mixed with a sticky, cardamom-flavored sugar syrup and formed into balls somewhat smaller than a golf ball.
A common variety, Besan Laddu, is also made from gram flour but is prepared differently. In this case the flour is slowly browned in ghee, a clarified butter used in Indian cooking. After the flour is golden and fragrant, it is mixed with sugar and cardamom powder and formed into small balls.
Rava laddu is made from semolina cooked or soaked in sugar syrup and rich milk until the mixture is dry enough to form balls. Nuts, raisins and grated coconuts are frequent additions to rava laddu. The pale color of the semolina also makes it a good recipe for adding ingredients such as grated beets, which add a distinctive flavor and bright color to the dessert.
Another variety, Churma laddu, is made from wheat flour. Some recipes use whole wheat flour and others a blend of all-purpose and whole wheat. Regardless of the flour used, it is mixed with milk or water to make a hard dough. The dough pieces are fried in ghee, then cooled and ground into a powder. The powder and ghee are mixed with powdered jaggery, an unrefined sugar popular in Indian cooking, and spices before being made into balls.
Other flour possibilities for laddu include ground channa dal, a relative of chickpeas; Toasted ground aval, or rice flakes and ragi flour, which is made from finger millet. Cashews, almonds and raisins are popular additions. Some recipes use sweetened condensed milk in place of some or all of the sugar. Many recipes call for the use of rolled shredded coconut, finely chopped nuts, or poppy seeds to make the balls easier to handle.
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