Bind Your Taste Buds With Delicious Gond ke Ladoo

New Delhi: Gond ke ladoo is super easy yet tasty that can be prepared with minimal ingredients. These ladoos are made with gond aka edible gum, whole wheat flour, ghee and dry fruits. It is a popular sweet made during North Indian winters.

Ingredients

• 250 grams whole wheat flour or 2 heaped cups whole wheat flour
• 100 grams gond or ½ cup gond
• 200 grams sugar or 1 heaped cup sugar or 200 grams powdered sugar or 1 cup grated or chopped jaggery
• 2 tablespoons almonds
• 2 tablespoons cashews
• 2 tablespoons pistachios – optional
• 2 tablespoons raisins
• 1 teaspoon cardamom powder – optional
• ½ cup desi ghee + 4 tablespoons at room temperature or 175 grams

Instructions

Making Powdered Sugar

1. Take sugar in a grinder jar.
2. Grind to a fine powder. Remove in a plate and keep it aside.

Frying Dry Fruits

1. Keep all the ingredients ready before you begin. Heat desi ghee in a heavy kadai. Please do not use a non-stick kadai. A heavy iron kadai or aluminium kadai works best for frying gond.
2. Let the ghee melt. Keep flame to medium low.
3. Add almonds. Stirring often fry almonds till their color changes and then remove with a slotted spoon. Keep aside.
4. Now add cashews. Stirring often fry cashews till they become light golden or golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep aside.
5. Add pistachios. Fry for some seconds till their colour changes. Remove and keep aside.

Frying Gond

1. Now in the same ghee, add one piece of gond.
2. If the gond comes up gradually and puffs up, the oil is ready for the gond to be fried. If the gond settles down in the oil, then increase the flame and let oil become hot. If the gond comes up quickly, then oil is very hot. Reduce the flame to lower the oil temperature.
3. Add gond in two batches. If you are an experienced cook, then add gond in a single batch.
4. Stir non-stop and fry gond till all of them puff up.
5. The gond pieces have to be fried evenly. So stir non-stop. Fry them well in ghee and do not burn them.
6. Remove the puffed up gond in a slotted spoon. Keep fried gond aside.

Roasting Wheat Flour

1. Reduce the flame to a low and then add 2 cups whole wheat flour in the same ghee.
2. Mix flour very well with ghee. begin to roast flour with the ghee.
3. Meanwhile when atta is getting roasted, add dry fruits in a grinder jar. also add the fried gond in a dry grinder jar.
4. Pulse and grind to a semi fine or coarse powder. You can keep dry fruits whole if you want. Do note that atta is getting roasted when you grind gond. If you are not able to multitask then switch off flame after frying gond. Crush gond in grinder. Then switch on flame again and let ghee become slightly hot. Add atta and roast. You can also use a belan (rolling pin) and crush gond. Keep the powdered gond and dry fruits aside.
5. Continue to keep on stirring and roasting the atta.
6. Roast atta till its color changes and you get a nutty aroma.
7. Then stir nonstop when you see the flour changing its color.
8. Stir and roast till the atta becomes golden or brown. Overall it took me a total of 17 minutes for the atta to get roasted to perfection (i had used a heavy iron kadai). Note that the timing will vary with the material, size and thickness of the kadai or pan. If you use steel kadai, then it will take less time.

Making Gond Ke Laddu

1. Switch off the flame. Keep the kadai down and raisins and cardamom powder.
2. Next add the powdered sugar. add the crushed gond and dry fruit mixture.
3. Begin to mix with a spoon. While mixing, break the sugar lumps if any in the ladoo mixture with a spatula or spoon. mix very well.
4. When the laddu mixture is still hot and the heat is tolerable to you, take a heaped size portion of it in a spoon or in your palms. Shape in a round ladoo.
5. In case the heat is not tolerable, then do wait for some minutes. Avoid burning your hands. If the mixture does not hold shape, then add 1 to 2 tablespoons ghee. Note that the ghee should be in a semi-solid state at room temperature.
6. Make medium-sized ladoos from this whole mixture. Store them in an airtight steel container (steel dabba).
7. They stay good for a couple of months. This recipe can be easily doubled or tripled. From this gond laddu recipe, you can make 17 to 18 laddu.
8. Serve gond ke laddu just by itself or with some hot or warm milk.