Nuts and Muesli Cereal Balls (Cereal na Ladoo)

I like buying a variety of muesli’s for breakfast as a lot of them have Low GI.   Recently, we bought a couple of packets of a range of muesli which had nuts as well barley, wheat and oat flakes.  This is one of the cereals which has no added sugar and wasn’t very popular with my family  so to use up the pack, I decided to make another batch of my flapjacks but then decided to make them into sweet balls using the recipe for gor papdi.  

Gor Papdi  is quick to make and a very popular dish in most Gujarati households. To give it a bit of a difference, I added the cereal mix to it and then used a mould to make small balls to enable us to have breakfast on the go.  It’s quite nice to have a small piece after lunch too. This recipe is not suitable for diabetics.

Ingredients for about 30 small balls:

• 2 cups of chapatti flour (sold in most Asian stores.  You can use any strong white flour)
• 250 grams of melted butter ( you can also use ghee if you like. Ghee is healthier)
• 2 cups of Jaggery (Often referred to as Gor.  Jaggery is usually in a block form.  Use a knife to shave down the sides of the block to get the jaggery shavings.  if you cut the jaggery into big chunks, it takes longer to melt and could make your cereal balls too firm to eat)
• 500 grams of nutty cereal mix. (I used Jordan’s four nut muesli which had nuts and seeds too)

Method:

1. Mix the wheat flour and half the melted butter in a microwave proof dish.  Cook this mixture for 2 minutes at a time for 3 times (total 6 minutes) .  After each 2 minutes, remove the dish and stir the mixture. If the mixture looks dry, add in a tablespoon of butter. (You can do this on the stove top too if you don’t have a microwave.)
2. Now add the cereal to the mixture, another tablespoon of butter, stir and cook in the microwave for 2 minutes.  Stir and leave the mixture in the microwave bowl for a couple of minutes.

3. In a Karahi/wok add the jaggery and any remaining butter  and heat it on a low heat until the jaggery melts.  Don’t let the jaggery boil or overcook as this will make your cereal balls too firm when they cool down. 

4.  As soon as the jaggery melts add the mixture you had cooked in the microwave.  Switch off the heat and keep mixing until it’s easy to form into small balls.

5.  Once mixed, as soon as it’s manageable (as the mixture will be hot), start forming the cereal balls and allow them to cool on a greased tray.  I used a mould to make them look uniform in shape and size.  If you are in a rush, you can just transfer them to a greased dish and cut them into chunks or strips. 

6. Once the cereal balls/ladoos are cool, you can store them in air tight container. they should be fine for a couple of weeks.

How do you use up the cereals no one in your family likes? Do share your recipes.