Sugar Free Besan Ladoo
Posted: September 5, 2008 Filed under: desserts, Erythritol, gluten free, no grains, Snacks, Stage 1, Stevia, Travel Foods, vegetarian, world cuisine 2 Comments »
Chickpea Flour has become my new friend. I bought it so I could make panisses and now that I have an opened bag, I’m looking at other ways to use this high protein, low carb flour. I have found the best place: the cuisine of India.
Indian food has loads of recipes that use chickpea flour and chickpeas in their whole form. I have always eaten and enjoyed Indian food, thanks to my neighbors, but it never dawned on me how much chickpeas were used until now.
I saw these lovely cookie balls when I visited Delhi years ago, and I was intrigued, but I decided not to indulge. My travel partners and I had been there a week and already our stomachs knew they were being exposed to some unfamiliar things. After two weeks, the only place we would eat was McDonalds. I hadn’t eaten there in many, many years, but the site of the golden arches was truly welcome. It was the only food we could keep down.
Besan Ladoo is an unusual cookie to me, since it’s the only cookie I know where you cook the flour first, and then shape it. Most of the time, it’s the other way around.
1 cup chickpea flour (besan)
1/2 cup ghee (I used 1/4 ghee and 1/4 palm)
3/4 cup erythritol
1/2 Tablespoon cardamom
3-4 Tablespoons Almond Milk
1/8 teaspoon Stevia
frypan
parchment lined cookie sheet
Melt ghee and palm oil in a fry pan over low to medium heat. Add flour, stir to combine. Mixture should be smooth and thick, not dry and crumbly. Add more ghee or palm until you get the right consistency. Continue to stir until the mixture browns and smells nutty. It may take about 20-30 mins. Remove from heat. Add cardamom, erythritol, stevia and three tablespoons of almond milk. Mix well, set aside and let mixture cool. If you notice the mixture looking too crumbly, add more almond milk, a table spoon at a time.
Once mixture is cool, form until ping pong sized balls. Place on parchment lined cookie sheet.
Makes 12 balls.
Notes:
*When I was making this, I noticed the mixture was becoming crumbly. I tasted it, and immediately thought PIE CRUST! Instead of adding almond milk, you could add a little ghee, and press into a pie plate. I think it would be a good replacement for a graham cracker crust. I’ll feature a recipe using this idea in the future.
*If you want to try a vegan version, you could try using all natural, organic palm shortening, but the taste will not come close to being the same as if you used ghee.
*I don’t always like nuts in cookies, but you can add chopped almonds in the mixture before it cools. I’ll try it next batch.
*If you like these, double the recipe! I have already eaten all of mine, as I love the combination of the roasted nuttiness with the cardamom! So good! These are great for kids and company. No wonder these cookies are expected during Divali!
[...] the bitterness of chickpea flour. The key to getting rid of the bitterness is to roast it. Ever had besan ladoo? Does that taste bitter? No? It’s because the flour is roasted until it’s a nutty brown [...]
[...] I created a pie crust I could make in a pan on my stove-top. I got this idea when I made besan ladoo and I had the heat too high. It made the cookie hard when cooled. It thought it would make a great [...]