The Making and Breaking of Besan Ka Laddoo

After my last post, some of you had asked about the besan ka laddoo. Well, I gave it a shot last week, feeling very festive with the twinkling lights and sparkling fireworks outside the window. I was quite confident, as the recipe seemed to be very simple: the one I was following said to take 4 cups besan to 1 cup each of ghee and powdered sugar; roast the besan in the ghee till it gives off an aroma, take it off the heat, cool & then mix in the sugar and some powdered cardamom (sliced almonds too if you want them), shape them into balls and voila! Besan laddoos are ready to serve.

It seems as if it should've been a piece of cake, but compared to what happened, cakes are much, much easier! If I were to describe step-by-stupid-step what I did and why I did it, this would be a reaallllly long post. So here's the concise version of the idiot's guide to besan ka laddoo.

It begins with my shock as what seemed to be a lil amount of ghee in the measuring cup suddenly looked like a mini-lake in the pan. I took out a couple of teaspoonfuls, considering we'd already had a lot of rich sweets earlier that week. Needless to say, the mix turned out to be too dry to shape into balls. I wanted to kick myself for that sudden attack of health-consciousitis. (Note to self: if you really want to eat "healthy", don't bother making sweets!)

Anyway, I thought I could still salvage it, something a quick call to mom confirmed - all I had to do was add more ghee. Now you would think since I had taken out only two teaspoonfuls, I would've replaced just that amount. But no, this is the idiot's guide, remember? I picked up the ghee bottle, yeah the whole bottle, and happily went glop, glop, glop ...... and some more glop, glop, glop all over the pan!

So now ....... yeah, you guessed it, the mixture was too wet!!! Usually quite a few types of dough tend to harden as they cool and I fervently hoped that this would too. So as it cooled, I tried forming a ball ....... it didn't exactly stay in a perfect round, but to my relief, at least it didn't break apart like in the first time.

Feeling better, I dropped the misshapen laddoo onto a waiting thali and started work on the next one ....... after which I stopped. This is why:

I had succeeded in making besan ka blobs!!! I stared in sheer disbelief for a few seconds, before my sense of humour caught up with me. I called out to hubby, who came inquiring if the laddoos were ready ...... and burst out laughing when he saw the plate!!!

Well, ultimately I just spread the whole mix onto the thali and even scored criss-cross lines over it, in a final hope that just maybe we could at least have besan burfi. But no, the moment I tried to lift a piece out, it would break apart! The end result was that we had to eat the umm, laddoos / burfi / powder with a spoon! But hey, it tasted exactly right, exactly like its supposed to. Hopefully, next time I'll get the look right too!!! :)

If you're planning to try this out, don't be put off by my experience, because in hindsight, its really not so bad. Just remember to get your measurements right; I don't think the ratios I used were correct, so if you'd like, check out this recipe here (I made pedas using their recipe and that turned out superb!) Also, roast the besan on very low heat (it must cook, but not brown) and oh yes, make sure your sugar is powdered really fine - did I forget to mention the intact sugar crystals in my mixture???

And a last all-important piece of advice: before attempting this recipe, talk it over with someone who's actually made besan ka laddoo - successfully!!!