Diwali special: Make healthy laddoos for your family with some inspiration from The Almond Board of California

Almond and goji berry boondi laddoo

Serves:  4 people (2 boondi laddoos each)

Ingredients                                                        Quantity

For ladoo batter

Besan                                                                    1 ½ cup

Water                                                                   1 cup

Cardamom powder                                         ½ tsp

Roasted Almond slivers                                 ¼ cup

Goji berry                                                            3 tbsp

Ghee                                                                     ¾ tbsp.

Sunflower oil                                                      for deep frying

For the Sugar Syrup

Sugar                                                                     1 ½ cup

Water                                                                   ¾ cup

Saffron strands                                                 a pinch

METHOD:

●        Take sugar, saffron strands and water in a pan, and put it over low flame. Cook the syrup till a single string consistency is achieved. Keep the sugar syrup hot.

●        Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed pan.

●        Mix besan, cardamom powder together and add water to it to form a batter.

●        To check the consistency of the boondi batter drop a few droplets of the better in hot oil, if it becomes flat, the batter is thin and if it has peaks, the batter is thick.

●        To make the batter thick add some more besan and to make the batter thin add some water.

●        To make boondi, hold a perforated ladle over hot oil, using a spoon spread the boondi batter over the perforated spoon; make sure that the perforated spoon and the pan don’t have much height between them or else the boondis will not be round.

●        Do not over fry the boondi and do not crisp it.

●        Remove them from oil once the oil stops to sizzle and put it in the sugar syrup. Strain the boondi from the syrup.

●        Mix the boondi with almond slivers and goji berries and add around a tbsp of ghee for the binding.

●        Make golf-sized roundels and shape them. Use ghee so the mixture does not stick on hands.

Nutritional Analysis

Almond and carrot halwa crumble

Ingredients                                                    Quantity

For Carrot

Carrot                                                               ½ kg

Full cream milk                                                 ½ litre

Sugar                                                                 ½ cup

Cardamom (powdered)                                 4 nos.

Ghee                                                                 2 tbsp

Almonds (blanched)                                        ¼ cup

For crumble

All- purpose flour                                         ¾ cup

Butter (unsalted)                                         ½ cup

Sugar                                                               ½ cup

Ground almonds                                          ½ cup

Method:

• In a pan, add milk and carrots together and keep on cooking till the milk reduces to 3/4th.

• Add cardamom powder, ghee, and sugar to it. Mix it well.

• Add the sliced, blanched almonds and mix well.

• For the crumble, rub the flour, butter, sugar and ground almonds together, till it resembles breadcrumbs.

• Bake the crumble at 180°C till the colour turns golden brown.

• Serve the gajar halwa with crumble and roasted almonds.

Nutritional Analysis