Besan Badam Laddoo - Besan Almond Ladoo

Nutty and decadent Besan Badam Laddoo is everyone's favorite from the Diwali sweets line up. Roasted Bengal gram flour (besan) and almond flour comes together with ghee and cardamom, to make these rolled balls of melt in your mouth goodness.

The plain, simple and delicious besan laddoo is pretty common and loved by everyone. Here we are taking it up one level with the addition of almonds to this.

The besan laddoo has an innate nuttiness from the besan / garbanzo bean flour. The almonds added to this make it more pronounced and adds a different dimension to the flavor.

Can almond meal be used instead of almond flour?

I have used almond flour in this recipe. You can also powder some skinless almonds, instead of using almond flour or use almond meal.

Almond meal and almond flour are from grinding almonds to a flour. Almond flour is grinding skinless almonds to a smoother flour while almond meal is almonds with skin that is ground to a coarser texture. For most recipes, they are interchangeable, but not for all.

Here are a few tips for making besan ladoo:

• Make sure you roast the besan and almond flour really well, watch for the tell tale strong nutty aroma.
• Roast in low heat and never any hotter than that, it might burn your flours.
• Don't panic if the mixture looks a little runny at first, it will thicken in a few minutes. It will thicken a little more after you remove it from the heat. Key is to add the powdered sugar once it has cooled down just a little bit, this way the sugar does not melt in the heat and add more liquid to it. Once it cools down significantly, it would have thickened up even more and you can easily form balls with it.

Method

• Sift the besan and almond flour to get rid of any clumps and to make it fluffier.
• Heat a heavy bottomed pan, a traditional Indian kadai or a dutch oven, over medium heat. Lower the heat to medium-low and add the besan and almond flour to the pan.
• Dry roast them for about 20 mins, keeping the heat low and moving the flours around almost constantly, so they dont get burnt.
• Once you get the tell tale nutty aroma from the flours, add the melted ghee.
• It may clump up a little, but break the clumps and work the ghee through all of the flour mixture. It will then become a crumbly mixture, then a gloopy mixture and start to thicken. (like in the images below). This should take about 10-15 mins.

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• Once it starts to thicken, remove from heat and add the ground cardamom to it and mix well.
• Keep aside for 10 mins or so and then add the powdered sugar to this mixture and mix well. It will be like an almost firm dough at this point.
• Let rest for 5 mins or so, till it is warm enough to be handled by your hand.

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• Make key lime sized balls of it by rolling some of the dough between the palms of your hand.
• You can decorate with edible silver pressed on top of these laddoos or sprinkle some crushed up almonds or pistachios.

If you love besan laddoo and want to experiment a little more with it, you can add some pumpkin pie spice along with the ground cardamom to give it a fall vibe. Here is the recipe for Besan Laddoo with Pumpkin Spice.

If you are looking for more Diwali and festival recipes, here are two collections:

Diwali Sweets and Savory Snacks

Diwali Recipes - Sweets, Snacks, Appetizers, Mains and Desserts

Storing Tips

Store these ladoos at room temperature in an airtight container for about 2 weeks.

This post was originally posted on this website in November, 2018 and has been modified and republished to add additional info and new images.