Maa Laddu

Thank you is just not sufficient for all the wishes that you guys have showered on us... Yeah the lil is doing good, just gives very lil time to blog and visit your spaces but I am doing my best to visit everywhere. But its gonna take a while before I return normally to all your places!!!

Maa Laddu, always reminds me of my grandmother (My Dad's Aunt, who is no more now) always keeps these laddu's ready and when ever we visited her she used to give us these. A very simple one yet it has high nutritional values, my Grandpa used to say that if little Buna Channa is consumed every day it would help aid in easy digestion and has lotsa protein and fiber. Due to the fiber content the carbohydrate in the gram is absorbed slowly and thus raising the blood sugar slowly, than the same amount of carbs was consumed from any other food source.



Ingredients:

Roasted Gram - 1 1/2 cups (Pottu Kadalai in Tamil, Buna Channa in Hindi)
Fresh Coconut - 3/4 cup grated
Sugar - 3/4 cup or accordingly
Cardamom Powder - 1/4 tsp
Milk - 1/2 cup or Butter/Ghee - 2 to 3 tbsps
Nuts (like Cashewnuts, Almonds etc dry roast and ground coarsely -- optional)

Yields: approximately 15 Laddu's.



Method:

1. Powder Roasted Gram and sift thoroughly. Mix powdered Sugar (the sugar that I used was fine so I dint powder it) and Cardamom Powder.
2. Grate the Coconut without the brown shells and roast it in a pan on medium flame until it turns brown. Let it cool down and run in the mixer without adding any Water or liquids.
3. Bring all the ingredients together and mix well, now add little Milk at a time and blend with your fingers and palms until the mixture takes form.
4. Roll small lemon sized balls and store in airtight containers.

Am sending these Maa Laddu's to Festive Food - Raksha Bandhan 2010