Boondi Ladoo / Boondi Laddu

Ingredients

Gram Flour (Besan) - 1 and 1/4 cup

Baking soda - 1 pinch

water - 3/4 cup + 1/2 cup

Sugar - 1 and 1/2 cup (level properly)

cashew nuts - 3 or 4 finely chopped

cloves - 3 or 4

Raisins - 1 tablespoon

Cardamom powder - 1/4 teaspoon

Ghee - 1 teaspoon

Preparation

Sieve gram flour and add baking soda to it.

Add 1/2 cup water and make it into a smooth , thick paste. Add 1/4 cup water little by little and make it into a semi thick batter. You might need little less than 1/4 cup water.

Add 1/2 cup water to the sugar in a thick bottomed vessel and heat it stirring it once in a while till the sugar dissolves.Once the sugar dissolves, let it boil without stirring till the sugar syrup reaches one string consistency.

The syrup reaches one step consistency when you can touch the syrup between the thumb and index finger and make a thin string out of it.

You can also test it by touching the tip of the spoon in the sugar syrup and holding it for few seconds.The syrup will form a thin string when it drops down.

Heat oil enough for frying bonds.This will need a lot of oil.

Use boondi ladle and make boondis using the gram flour batter. The consistency of the batter makes the whole dish goes either right or wrong. :)

To check the consistency of the batter, use the back of a small spoon and mix the batter. Hold this spoon over the hot oil. If the batter falls into the oil and make round balls, then the consistency is proper. If it has tails, then add little more water.

If it makes very thin boondis or with holes, then water is more.Add some more gram flour to it. 

The saying "Practice makes Perfect” is very very true for making boondis. 

Try it out couple of times and you will be able to master this. The most important thing that we need when making large amount of sweets for festivals is "PATIENCE”  :)

Once you are satisfied with the consistency of batter, take a ladle full of batter and pour it on the boondi ladle. Tap it on the sides of the ladle so that the rounds fall into the oil. Remove it from the oil when it is cooked, but not fried crisp. Take utmost care not to fry it crisp.

Repeat this for all the batter.When you are doing the next batch, you will have to wipe out the remaining batter from the ladle before pouring the batter on to it. When my mom used to make ladoos, one vessel will be ready with water. My job(when I was a small kid) was to wash the ladle in the water and wipe it clean and keep it ready for the next batch. :)

Fry the cashew, raisins and cloves in ghee and add to the sugar syrup. Take a little of the boondis, particularly the ones which is not in perfect round or which has joined together to form lumps and grind it for just couple of seconds in the mixer to make it little coarse particles.

Add this and the other half of the boondis to the sugar syrup and mix it well. 

Apply a little ghee in your hand and start making rounds. Keep them for drying for few hours and the ladoos are ready to be devoured :)