Besan Ladoo (Easy 4-ingredient Recipe)
Besan Ladoo is the most popular Indian sweet to make during the festive season. You just need a few ingredients, such as gram flour, ghee, and sugar, to make these melt-in-the-mouth dessert balls. Make this decadent sweet with this easy, fail-proof recipe!
Servings: 10
Ingredients
- 1 cup Gram flour (Besan) 105 grams, I used coarse "ladoo besan", sifted
- 1/4 cup Ghee 55 grams
- 1/2 cup Powdered Sugar 60 grams, can reduce to 1/3 cup depending on taste, preferably use boora
- 1/2 teaspoon Cardamom powder (Elaichi)
- 1-2 tablespoon Roasted Nuts (optional) chopped, such as cashews almonds, pistachios
Instructions
- Heat a heavy-bottomed pan on low heat. Add ghee and let it melt.
- Add the sifted besan to the pan and mix. (Make sure to sift and measure the quantity of besan.)
- The besan and ghee mixture will initially form a clump. Keep stirring and break up to loosen the mixture.
- After about 10 minutes of continuous stirring, the mixture will begin to loosen up.
- Keep stirring, and at around 15 minutes, the besan will have a smooth paste-like consistency. Keep roasting for up to 25-30 minutes until the color changes to golden and a sweet aroma fills your house. If you don't get this paste-like texture, then add a little more ghee.
- Once the color of the besan is changed to golden, remove the pan from the heat. You can transfer the besan to another container to avoid overcooking, or keep stirring it in the pan for 2-3 minutes after taking it off the flame. This will help it cool down.
- Once the besan mixture has cooled completely in about 15 minutes (touch to make sure), add in the sugar, cardamom powder, and nuts/raisins (if using).
- Mix together with your hands so everything is well combined.
- It makes a smooth dough.
- Take a small lemon-sized portion from the dough. Roll between your palms to form a round ladoo. You can apply a little ghee to your hands while rolling. Repeat with the remaining dough. You would get about 8-10 ladoos.
- If the ladoos are not perfectly round, you can reshape them by rolling them between your hands again in 5 minutes.
- You can garnish with chopped nuts while making the ladoo. You can also apply edible silver leaf (chandi ka varak) on the ladoos to make them look more festive. Store the besan ladoo in an airtight container in a single layer. Enjoy!
Video
Notes
Besan: Use fresh besan to make ladoo. I understand you don't have too much control or cannot find the date the besan was made, but use the one you got recently for the best results.
Roasting:
- Roast the besan well on a low flame in a heavy-bottomed pan. This is the most important thing to make good besan ladoo. If you don't roast the besan well, the ladoos will taste raw. See step-by-step images of this recipe so you can see how the texture of the besan changes as it cooks.
- Make sure not to over-roast the besan, or else it can burn. You have to keep stirring and watching the besan while making these ladoo. It only takes a minute for the besan to go from being perfectly cooked to burning, so be careful in the final stages.
- Be patient and stir on: Making Besan Ladoo is a lot of arm work, and you need to keep stirring continuously. This is crucial for the besan to cook uniformly and not burn.
Nutrition
Calories: 115kcal | Carbohydrates: 13g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 12mg | Sodium: 12mg | Potassium: 109mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 7g | Calcium: 5mg | Iron: 1mg