Ladoo or Churma na ladoo

Churma na ladoo is one sweet, my family, including the kids, love. These ladoos remind me of my brother’s birthday celebrations in Kenya which took place every year in September.  All the relatives used to be invited for a  scrumptious Gujarati  lunch cooked by my mum with the help of my dad.  These ladoos were always made the day before with a big batch sweetened with sugar and a second batch sweetened with jaggery.   After I got married, I continued to make them but  have managed to change the recipe to suit the present life style by using less ghee (clarified butter) and also less sugar or jaggery.

Jump to Recipe

 

Ingredients for about 20 ladoos:

• 2 ½ cups wheat flour
• ½ cup semolina
• 1 cup ghee ( may not need all of it)
• 4 cups oil for frying
• 1½  cup of finely grated or sliced jaggery
• 1 cup warm milk
• 1 tsp ground  cardamoms
• ½ tsp of ground nutmeg
• 1-2 tablespoons of Khus-Khus (poppy seeds)

Method:

1.   Mix wheat flour and  semolina with 2 table spoons ghee . Add some warm milk and knead into a dough. You can use more ghee if needed.

2.   Make 12-14 small balls called muthias out of dough.  Take a small amount of dough and press it in your fist and keep pressing it by passing it from one hand to another.  As you pass the dough from hand to hand, it gets shaped like your fist and we call these muthias. The muthias should be firm.

3.   Heat the oil and fry the muthias at very low heat until they are golden brown.   Let the muthias cool down a bit.  Once cool, transfer them to a food processor and grind them make into a coarse mixture of uniform consistency.  

 

4. Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and add the nutmeg, and cardamom to the ladoo mixture. Add 2 tablespoons of ghee and  warm it slightly so that the jaggery melts.  Add the warm jaggery and ghee mixture to the ladoo mixture and mix it together using a spoon.

5. Make ladoos when the mixture is still hot but manageable.  The ladoos are traditionally,  round with a flat bottom but you can also use a mould if you wish.  Sprinkle some  khus khus on each ladoo to give them their traditional look.

6.  These  Churma na ladoo are traditionally served with a Gujarati thali which consists of a variety of dishes – one of which is Gujarati dall.  These Ladoos are also made on Ganesh chaturthi which is  one of the most popular of Hindu festivals.