Churma na Ladwa (Wheat flour ladoos)

Churma na Ladwa- A gujarati sweet, made from wholewheat chappati flour, ghee (clarified butter) and jaggery (cane suger.) Beautifully flavoured with cardamom and saffron these small ladoos are often made as Prasad offering when conducting prayers .

Ingredients:

1.5 Cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup jaggery (gor) (if you have a sweet tooth add an extra tablespoonful)
3/4 cup ghee
1.5 teaspoons cardamom powder
1 teaspoon saffron
2 Tablespoons poppy seeds( kus kus)
30 ml milk
30 ml water



Method:

1. Add the saffron to the milk and warm the milk to release the saffron colour, Add water to the milk.
2. In a bowl add the flour and using the milk and water make a very stiff hard dough.(Only use as much liquid as needed you may have some spare left over.)
3. Divide the dough into 12 balls.
4. Roll out the balls into 3 inch rounds called bakris and approximately 5mm thick. Cut small slits in them to stop bakris puffing up when roasting.
5. Cook bakris on a tava on a very low heat till they are hard and crispy like crackers.
6. Cool the bakris and once they are cooled break into small pieces.


7. Grind the pieces into a powder resembling coarse semolina. (This is called churma) Keep aside.
8.Grate the jaggery and add to the churma, also add the cardamom powder and mix in.
9. Melt the ghee and add gradually to the churma and jaggery mixture. Don't add all the ghee at once. Add only enough ghee so that you are able to form ladoos with the the churma mixture with out laddos falling apart.(You can check this by taking a handful of mixture and making a ball in your fist, if mixture is right it will form a ball if its too dry it will crumble)


10. Using either a ladoo mould or just using the palm of your hands form small ladoos. Sprinkle ladoos with poppy seeds (kus kus.) -You can see below I made both; by hand and in ladoo mould.


NB-This recipe will make 24 bite sized ladoos or 12 large.

**The authentic way to make these is that at step 3 the dough balls are formed to make fist shape with indentations and deep fried in ghee till crispy and then cooled and powdered to make churma.The rest of the steps after that will be the same.
I adapted the recipe to make it healthier by making bakris cooking them on tava. I have tried both methods and one cannot tell the difference in taste in the finished ladoos, the baked version is so much healthier.

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