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Besan Laddoo (Sweet Chickpea Flour Balls with Cashew and Raisins) Indian Sweet. Gluten Free, Soy Free and Vegan Recipe. Jump to Recipe
Happy Ganesh Chaturthi Everyone! This festival celebrates the birthday of Lord Ganesha, who is widely worshiped in India, as the god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune.
The celebration consists of installing a Ganesh Idol at home or community, conducting worship ceremonies, making sweet items to offer to god and everyone around and so on. After 10 days, the idol is immersed in a river/sea/water body. Read more about the festival here.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesh_Chaturthi
Depending on the region, different kinds of Indian sweets are made for this occasion. Modaks(Rice flour dumplings) are the most common in most parts of India, Different Laddoos(sweet flour balls), deep fried dough balls and more. Whether you believe in god or not, it is an occasion to meet and greet, exchange sweets, and celebrate life and good fortune.
Traditionally, the Ganesh icon was sculpted out of earth taken from nearby one’s home. After worshiping this earth icon, it was returned back to the Earth by immersing it in a nearby water body. Lets do the same and reduce the environmental impact of the toxic materials and colors used in the fancy modern idols!.
Besan Laddoo is tradionally made with chickpea flour(garbanzo bean flour), a good amount of ghee(clarified butter), sugar and some flavor like cardamom. My version.. ghee-free, has some quinoa in it and is very similar to the usual mom made ones!
Besan Laddoo (Sweet Chickpea Flour Balls With Cashews And Raisins) Indian Sweet, Vegan
Besan Laddoo (Sweet Chickpea Flour Balls with Cashew and Raisins) Indian Sweet. Gluten Free, Soy Free and Vegan Recipe.
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoons gram/chickpea/garbanzo bean flour, (besan)
- 1 teaspoon semolina flour, (fine sooji, omit this for gluten free version)
- 2 teaspoons quinoa flour, (optional, can be substituted with semolina flour)
- 2 tablespoons vegan butter, (earth balance, soy free)
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 3 tablespoons raw sugar, (more for sweeter balls, I like mine mildy sweet)
- 1 tablespoon agave syrup, (optional)
- 1/4 teaspoons coarsely ground cardamom seeds, (elaichi)
- 2 tablespoons of chopped cashews, (small pieces. large pieces will make it difficult to form balls)
- 2 tablespoons raisins
- a tablespoon or 2 of water
Instructions
- Melt the vegan butter in a large pan on low heat.
- Cook the cashews and raisins in it for 2 minutes until golden and remove them leaving as much butter as possible in the pan. Alternatively, cook the cashews and raisins in about a teaspoon of butter separately.
- Add coconut oil and heat with butter.
- Add the besan (chickpea flour), semolina flour, quinoa flour and mix.
- Cook on medium heat and begin to roast the mixture, until it becomes light golden brown in color and gives out a sweet aroma. Stir the mixture continuously with a spatula to prevent burning. 7-10 minutes. The mixture should also start to form clumps.
- Cook the flour well, else it will taste raw, which is not fun.
- Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool to a warm-hot temperature. (a minute)
- Meanwhile, Blend/grind the raw sugar into powder. or use powdered jaggery.
- Add in cardamom seeds, and sugar to the flour mixture and mix well.
- Add in the cashews and raisins and mix well with spoon or hand to make mixture more clumpy. (1 minute)
- To make the balls, take about 1.5-2 Tablespoons of warm flour mixture into your palm. Gently press the mixture between your palms to form a smooth, round ball. Of course if you are in a hurry, you can just eat the flour mix like a halwa :)(dense sweet dough dessert).
- If the mixture doesn't form balls easily, which might happen because I use butter as less as possible, add half a tablespoon of agave syrup and a few drops of warm water and mix. Keep adding drops of water and a few drops of agave till it becomes a big clump.
- All this should be done, while the mixture is still warm-hot to touch. (you can reheat the mixture in the pan to warm-hot if it has completely cooled down). Form balls and let cool completely before storing in airtight container for 1-2 weeks. Hope you all like these Indian Sweet Balls! Have an awesome day everyone!
Notes
- To increase the quantity, increase oil/wet ingredients to dry ingredients(besan flour) by 1:3 ratio and sugar to dry ingredients by 1:2 ratio, that is for every 1 Tbsp increase in dry ingredients, increase oil by 1/3 Tbps and sugar by a 1/2 Tbsp.
- Nutritional value is based on 1 serving
Nutrition
Calories: 109kcal, Carbohydrates: 13g, Protein: 1g, Fat: 5g, Saturated Fat: 2g, Sodium: 27mg, Potassium: 87mg, Sugar: 6g, Vitamin A: 135IU, Vitamin C: 0.2mg, Calcium: 2mg, Iron: 0.5mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Did you make this recipe? Rate and comment below!
These balls are headed to Amee’s Fit and Fabulous Friday, Erin’s Friday Potluck and Hearth and Soul blog hop #63 And to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend!!!
My mixture came out much too fluid to form laddoos 🙁 Salvaged it by adding almond meal until it was the right texture. Feels like there’s too much fat in the recipe for the amount of flour/ sugar?
Sorry about that. I think this recipe got messed up while transferring all recipes into the new widget a few years back. Glad you could work it out!
Try my books version. 1 cup besan, 4-5 tbsp oil(mix of oil and vegan butter works best), 1/8 tsp salt and 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 2 tbsp more for sweeter. Same process. Roast the besan with oils until brown and fragrant. Take off heat Heat and mix sugar, the. Roll into balls
I had the same issue with this quantity (besan 5 T, quinoa flour 2 t, semolina 1 t). I had to add 3 more T of almond flour. Makes sense. 5+1 (2+1 t) +3 af makes a total of 9 T. Butter and oil is a total of 3 T. That’s a 1:3 ratio as described later in the notes.
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Hello. I made your vegan besan laddoo recipe today. I was puzzled with the quantities- the 5 tablespoons of besan was so I added more besan using 12.5 tablespoons of besan to start with. So I was expecting to make more than 16 ladoos.
The ladoos turned out delicious. Thank you! However I had to roast for about about 40 minutes instead of the 10-15 in the recipe. Also in the end I got only 11 ladoos.
Would like to confirm the 5 tablespoons of besan in the recipe.
Thank you
Anshula
I think this recipe got messed up when transferring to the widget, since the blog was on a different platform back in 2011. It also makes small Ladoos. Glad it worked out anyway.
Use my books version. 1 cup besan, 4-5 tbsp oil(mix of oil and vegan butter works best), 1/8 tsp salt and 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 2 tbsp more for sweeter. Same process. Roast the besan with oils until brown and fragrant. Take off heat Heat and mix sugar, the. Roll into balls
Thank you for your response. Your recipe is very good.. Making vegan besan laddoo is not easy because it’s hard to get the vegan laddoo to hold their shape. Some of the tips such as using a combination of vegan butter and oil are excellent and your recipe is the only place where I have seen this.
Please correct the recipe in the widget so that others can benefit from your otherwise excellent write up and recipe.
Thank you!
I’ll post a new recipe as the pictures on this one are with quinoa.
Richa, I don’t have coconut oil handy, what can b used as substitute?
use more vegan butter or canola oil or kokum butter.
Richa, can I just say I am absolutely thrilled to have found your blog! As a new vegan, I’ve already started planning ahead for the Hindu festival season and am so happy you seem to have done so much of my work for me! I don’t really have access to a good vegan margarine though – most ones around here are pretty gross, do you think this will be okay with 3 tbsp of coconut oil? Do you use virgin or refined coconut oil, by the way?
I am glad you found me ..:)i use virgin coconut oil. you can use virgin coconut oil for the sweets. With enough spices, you wont be able to taste it too.
or any other virgin and organic high fat oil, like rice bran, sunflower, sesame, almond or organic canola oils.
If the laddoos dont come together, add agave or maple or thick sugar syrup, few more drops of oil and water. hope this helps! let me know how it turns out and if u have any other questions:)
you can find other sweets, laddoos, gulab jamuns, katli and more on the facebook album here https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.219854958075504.54976.143274179066916&type=3
Thank you Amee, 21st century housewife.
Thanks for trying the recipe Genevieve!