Maa ladoo| Maladu | Maa laddu using jaggery

Maa laddu is fondly called as Maladu. Maa ladoo is made with roasted/fried gram/daliya/pottukadalai, sweetened with sugar/jaggery and moistened with ghee to make into delicious ladoos. Maa laddu is a beginners-friendly recipe with minimal ingredients, no cooking (except frying cashews in ghee) and easy-peasy recipe. These delicious laddus are protein and iron rich ladoos with healthy fats and is highly recommended for growing children. These ladoos are usually made with white sugar but I prefer making it with cane sugar (naatu sarkarai) or jaggery(vellam) and this healthy version too tastes good.

Maa ladoo| Maladu | Maa laddu

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

5 mins

Total time

15 mins

 

Serves: 10

Ingredients

• Roasted/Fried gram/Pottukadalai - ½ cup
• Jaggery or Naatu sakkarai - ⅓ cup tightly packed
• Cardamom - 1
• Ghee - ⅛ cup or 2 tbsp
• Cashews - 10

Instructions

Grinding:

1. Add ½ cup fried gram to a dry pan and roast in low-medium flame for 2 to 3 mins or just hot to touch. Do not change color. Immediately, transfer to a plate and let it cool down completely.
2. Add fried gram to a dry mixie jar along with 1 whole cardamom and grind to a nice powder without any bits.
3. Transfer ground fried gram powder to a dry bowl.
4. Add ⅓ cup tightly packed jaggery or cane sugar to the same mixie jar. Use good quality jaggery without any sand or dirt.
5. Grind jaggery to powder without any bits. Grind in pulses as continuous grinding might release water from jaggery.
6. Add ground fried gram powder to powdered jaggery and grind again until well combined. Just give few pulses to combine well.
7. Transfer the powdered mix to a dry bowl.

Shaping:

1. Chop/break cashews into small pieces.
2. In a pan, add ⅛ cup ghee in low flame. Once melted, add broken cashews and fry in low flame until golden.
3. Pour hot ghee with fried cashews into the bowl with powdered jaggery and fried gram mix. Mix well with a spoon, so that ghee is mixed well.
4. Once it is still warm, mix with hand. Take a tablespoon of the mix, tightly hold and shape into laddus.
5. Repeat to finish. You can make laddus only when the mix is hot. If you can't shape last few laddus, transfer to microwave safe bowl and heat for 10 seconds or until just warm to shape laddus.
6. Once laddus are cooled down completely, transfer to air-tight container and enjoy for a week.

Notes

1.Use ½ cup jaggery if you prefer more sweetness.
2.You can substitute sugar in place of jaggery. Powder sugar and then add.
3.You can use ⅛ tsp cardamom powder in place of 1 whole cardamom.
4.Do not be tempted to add more ghee as it will make the laddus soggy.
5.Use homemade ghee for best taste.
6.If you are planning to double or triple the recipe, divide the flour and add ghee in batches to make ladoos, else it will be dried out quickly.

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