Boondi Ladoo, बूंदी लड्डू, bundia laddu is a dish we all love to eat, be it Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi or just another day. Here’s the perfect recipe to make these delights! Round fried gram flour balls like pearls, soaked into sugar syrup, flavored with edible camphor, cloves and cardamon, then shaped into balls.
Boondi laddo is something we all have been enjoying since we were a child. Whether you are from the southern part of India, or the north, we’ve got your nostalgia covered.. Detailed Recipe below 🙂
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Ingredients :
For Boondi : Besan / Gram Flour – 1 ¼ cup (160g appx)
Water – ¾ cup appx. (175 – 180ml)
Food Colors – Kesar, Red, Green (optional)
Ghee – to deep fry
For Sugar Syrup : 1 ¼ cup (260g appx)
Water – 1 cup
Edible Camphor / Kacha Karpoor – 1 pinch
Cloves – 3-4
Food Color – Kesar (optional)
Optional Ingredients for Laddu : Cardamom powder – 1 pinch
Melon Seeds – 1 tbsp
Slivered Almonds – 1 tbsp
Method :
1. For Boondi : Add the besan to a mixing bowl with the kesar food color. Pour in about 160 ml of water and mix to form a lump free batter.
2. Let the batter sit idle for 15-20 mins. After that, add in more water to adjust the consistency for a flowing consistency batter. (refer video for exact consistency)
3. Heat up ghee in high flame, once hot take the boondi jhara and keep it about 4 inches above the ghee and pour in some batter to the jhara.
4. Once sufficient boondis have dropped to the ghee, let them cook for a minute or until boondis stop creating bubbles. Take down to a bowl/sieve/kitchen towel lined plate.
5. Clean excess batter from jhara for the second batch, and repeat the procedure to make boondis.
6. Divide the batter for the last batch into two bowls, and mix red and green colors in them. Add a few drops of water to adjust the consistency of the batter as the batter gets thick when color is mixed. Follow the same procedure to make colourful boondis.
7. Once the boondis are ready, add in the melon seeds, slivered almonds and cardamom powder to them and keep aside.
8. For Sugar Syrup : In a pan, add in the sugar and water and heat in medium flame. Once it gets boiling, crush and add a tiny bit of edible camphor and the cloves. If you want to add food color to syrup also, add now.
9. Boil the sugar syrup in medium flame until the small bubbles surfacing in the syrup turns into large bubbles and when a drop of syrup added to a bowl full of water settles. Turn off the flame, add in 1 – 1 ½ tbsp of water and mix well.
10. Add in the boondi mixture and start mixing bottom to top. Continuously mix until the mixture is warm and the mixture is starting to get dry.
11. Get your hands in, and take a little portion in your finger and shape into ladoo using your other hand. (refer video for exact hand action)
12. Repeat the process with rest of the boondi mixture and form ladoos! You may garnish top with nuts if you want to.
That’s all you gotta do to make these authentic boondi laddos, but wait, you gotta let them mature for 4-5 hours minimum before digging in, that’ll take care of dealing with the flavours whilst turning them sweeter & softer
Handy Tips:
• For Sugar Syrup – Use a Heavy Bottom Pan, aluminium preferred. Try to avoid Black/NonStick/Hard Anodised/Stainless Steel Pans.
• For Batter Consistency – Test the consistency of batter by pouring some batter in the jhara and see how boondi forms. It should fall down drop by drop, if it flows fast, you’d get oddly shaped boondi/lumps of boondi, if it flows slowly you’d get hard/tailed boondi.
• Ghee Level in Pan – If the ghee is less in pan, then you’d get flat boondi or many times it turns into a mass/lump in the center.
• Ghee Temperature – If the temperature is low, then boondis can stick to bottom of the pan/can be oddly shaped and can form into a lump in the center. When the ghee temperature and batter consistency is correct, the boondis fall in the ghee then cooks from out instantly to capture the shape and comes to the sides of the pan to cook inwards.
• Sugar Syrup Consistency & trick behind it – Make sure consistency of syrup is correct, if the syrup is thick, then boondis will get sugar coated and dry like candy, if it is too thin, then they will absorb the syrup but it won’t set from outside and hence it won’t form into ladoos and will remain sticky.
To get the perfect consistency, add room temp water to the thick bubbly syrup. For normal to dry south indian style boondi laddo – 1 tbsp. For a little softer and juicier north indian style ladoo – upto 2 tbsp water. Easy and simple trick, to avoid misshapen of consistency/tars/thread as everyone does not have a candy thermometer or density scale.
• Jhara – If you can’t find it, and have access to tools and metals, you can drill holes in a sheet of aluminium and attach a handle to it 🙂
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