Besan Laddu

I often wonder how some bloggers enthusiastically do special posts in advance during festivals. I never happen to cook special dishes just before the festival days for blogging sake and I am left too exhausted on a festive day to click the dishes I prepared. I therefore end up posting no festive foods during the season. This time I wanted it to be different and on purpose, I selected "Navaratri Special" theme during the second week of BM#21 so that I could post some easy and yummy sweets/savories.
My first post in the series is going to be these delicious besan laddus that need very minimal efforts to prepare. The only thing needed is a pair of strong arms to fry the besan until you start to smell the aroma. The fried besan and powdered sugar are formed into laddus using ghee as the binding agent. The less amount of ingredients used and the simplicity of the recipe makes it novice friendly.

Ingredients: (Yield about 18 - 20 laddus)
2 cups besan / chickpea flour
1.5 cups powdered sugar *
1/2 cup ghee (or as needed.)
1/4 tsp cardamom powder (optional)

* My mother uses sugar and besan in the same ratio for these laddus. If you have a sweet tooth go with 1:1 ratio. I however prefer my sweets to be not sweeter and so this proportion works for me.

Method:
1. Melt 1/4 cup ghee in a pan and add besan to it. Fry the besan on low flame, continuously stirring. Fry until the raw smell of the flour is gone and the besan starts to change color. It would take around 12 - 15 minutes of continuous stirring. Turn off the stove.
2. Add powdered sugar and cardamom to the besan pan and mix well. Leave it aside for about 10 minutes so that the flour mixture is easy to handle with bare hands.
3. After the mixture has cooled down, add the remaining ghee (or as needed) to the besan mixture and mix well.
4. Take a handful of the mixture and shape into a round ball. Repeat the step with the remaining besan - sugar mixture. Store them in an airtight container.

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