Maa Ladoo/ Maa Laddu

25 mins

Serves 4 people

Author: Rajni Ram

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Maa Ladoo/ Maa Urundai or fried gram Laddu is one of the most nutritious, simple, healthy, quick Laddus that one can make. It is made of fried gram (Pottukadali/Porikadalai) powder, Sugar, Ghee, Nutmeg powder, and Cardamom powder. The taste is simply delicious and it has a melt in the mouth texture. Simple ingredients make this sweet taste heavenly.

In South India especially Tamil Nadu festivals like Janmashtami, Navarathri, and Deepawali are incomplete without this sweet. I learnt the recipe of this sweet from my mother in law and she made them very well. During Navarathri what she would do is grind mix all the dry ingredients and store them in an airtight jar, so whenever guests dropped in, she would melt a little ghee and mix it with the Fried gram flour and offer it to them fresh. The taste of freshly prepared Maa Urundai is simply out of the world. To this day I follow her method of instantly mixing the flour with ghee when guests visit during Navarathri.

While you are here please do check out my recipes of other sweets like Carrot kheer, Atte ka Sheera, Pineapple Rabri, Sugiyan, Akkaravadisal, Chakkara Pongal and more…

Here is the recipe of Maa Ladoo for you

Ingredients

Fried Gram/ Pottukadalai/Chutney chana 1 cup (1 cup=150ml)
Sugar 1 cup
Cardamom 7 pods
Nutmeg a tiny piece
Cashewnuts 8-10 broken to bits
Ghee around 3/4 cup or as required

Assemble all ingredients. Take the fried gram/Pottukadali in a dry grinder and grind it to a fine powder. Pass the powder through a sieve and discard the residue.
Now put the sugar along with the cardamom and nutmeg into the dry grinder and powder them finely.
Add the sugar powder to the fried gram flour and mix well. Now melt 1 tbsp ghee in a small Kadai and fry the Cashewnuts until light brown. Add the ghee along with the fried cashewnuts to the flour and using your fingers mix well.
Now in the same small Kadai melt 3/4 cup of ghee. Let it become warm. Now pouring 2-3 teaspoons at a time mix the ghee with a small amount of the flour and shape into a ball. With 2-3 teaspoons of ghee, you will be able to make 2-3 ladoos at a time, depending on the size. Posting a video below to show the procedure.
Repeat this process for the entire flour and store the ladoos in a container. The delicious ladoos are ready to gobble up.
WATCH VIDEO

Take 1 cup of fried Gram/Pottukadalai/Chutney Chana in a dry grinder and grind it to a fine powder. Pass this through a sieve and discard the residue. Now take 1 cup sugar in the dry grinder, add the cardamom and nutmeg and grind it to a fine powder. Add this powder to the fried gram powder. Now in a small Kadai melt 1 tbsp ghee and fry the brown cashewnut bits until light brown. Pour the ghee along with the fried cashewnuts into the flour and sugar mix. Now mix the contents in the dish nicely with your hands. Now melt the 3/4 cup ghee in the small Kadai. Now pour around 2-3 tsp of ghee each time with a spoon into the flour, mix nicely with your fingers and form small balls of them. For each 2-3 teaspoon of ghee, you can make around 2 laddus. Repeat this process until you form Laddus of all the flour. I am adding a small video of the Laddu forming procedure in the stepwise recipe. Hope it is helpful. The delicious Laddus are ready to gobble. Kids and adults alike will love the taste. Enjoy. Bon Appetit.

Notes:

Sieving the fried gram powder after grinding is important as it gives the Ladoo a smooth texture and also tastes better that way.
I have mentioned Sugar as 1 cup and not sugar powder, so take care of that. 1 cup of sugar will yield about 11/4 cup of sugar powder and I recommend you use this entire amount. 1 cup of sugar powder will be a little less for the Ladoo.
Further elaborating on note 2 if using store-bought sugar powder you can add between 11/4 to 1.5 cups of sugar powder.
Sugar and Ghee are the binding agents of this sweet to better not to add less. Sugar also gives the shine to the Ladoo. Adding very little sugar will result in brittle ladoos which will break on touching as they would not have bonded properly.
Note 4 holds good for ghee also. Using very little ghee will also result in the ladoos not retaining form and will break. This said using too much ghee will also result in the ladoo slumping and not retaining form.
This is why I have recommended pouring ghee as required, which is 2-3 teaspoons at a time so that we don’t end up adding too much, at the same time we will also know the required amount.