Ladoooma! Scoring some Diwali goals!

My son, Rushil, runs around screaming ‘Laduma’ every time he sees a Laddoo. These are made not only at Diwali time but whenever there is a prayer.

Here is my recipe for Laddoo…

Ingredients:

Syrup:

625ml Spar sugar

300ml cold water

5ml egg yellow food colouring

2ml red food colouring

Spar sunflower oil, to fry

500ml chickpea flour

7ml baking powder

20ml Spar butter

220 – 250ml cold water

5ml ground cardamom

Tinted almonds to garnish

Edible gold leaf, to garnish

Combine the sugar and water in a thick bottomed pan.

Stir until the sugar dissolves and then bring to the boil.

When the syrup thickens slightly, remove from the heat.

Add the food colourings and stir.

Add more food colouring if necessary.

Place the chickpea flour in a large mixing bowl with baking powder.

Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Add enough cold water to make a thick batter.

Heat the sunflower oil in a thick bottomed pot.

Hold a colander over the hot oil and press a little batter through.

Frying the boondhi in the 40cm AMC electro roast unit

Fry the batter droplets in hot oil and remove when they are light golden brown.

Drain the cooked droplets for a few seconds and then place them in the warm syrup.

Repeat until all the batter has been fried and soaked in syrup.

Sprinkle the ground cardamom over and leave aside until the syrup has been absorbed.

Grease your palms with a little oil and mould the mixture into balls – they are quite sticky at first but do dry out after a few hours.

Moulding the boondhi into laddoo

Garnish with tinted almonds and gold leaf.

Yudhika’s tips:

The syrup must not spin threads when it is tested – it should still be thin enough to penetrate the fried batter droplets.