FRUIT & NUT LADDU

A variety of dried fruits and nuts such as almonds, walnuts, cashews, figs, apricots, dates and poppy seeds are gently roasted, crushed and rolled into balls. Talk about a simple, healthy and delicious munchie!

In the year 2019, we visited my 80-year-old distant aunt in Mississauga, Canada. I cannot, for the life of me, ever figure out how she’s related to us. Anyway, she’s a passionate cook and had prepared a veritable feast of foods and condiments for us. I found her cookbook and spent hours going through it. There I found a rough recipe for Date Wheels. (See Below)

These laddus are a riff on my aunt’s recipe. I find it so much easier to roll them into balls rather than rolling the mixture into a log first, chilling the log, and then slicing it into discs.

You could pretty much use any dry fruits and nuts to make this. Just bear in mind to have a 2:1 dry nut to fruit ratio. The stickiness from the dry fruits acts as the binding agent and so it’s important that they’re adequately represented in the mix.

I serve these laddoos as a snack, for dessert, as a topping for oats or ice cream, I mean, you could steer this in any direction that you choose.

You could check out my take on Aunt Shanta’s Tofu Burger here.

THIS RECIPE MAKES 25 BALLS

INGREDIENTS

1. Almonds – 1 cup
2. Cashewnut – 1 cup
3. Walnuts – 1 cup
4. Pistachios – 1/2 cup
5. Dates – 1/2 cup
6. Apricots – 1/2 cup
7. Cranberries or Raisins – 1/2 cup
8. Poppy seeds – 2 tsps (optional)
9. Ghee/clarified butter – 1 tsp

METHOD

1. Heat the ghee in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add the almonds, cashew nuts, walnuts and pistachios and roast for a couple of minutes.
2. Add the dates, apricots and cranberries (or raisins as the case may be) and roast on a medium-low flame for another 5 mins, until the dry fruits soften a bit and the nuts let out a good aroma. Turn off the heat. Add the poppy seeds and mix well.
3. Once the mixture cools down a bit but is still warm, transfer to a blender or food processor and pulse until it resembles a coarse mixture or to a preferred texture. Roll them into balls.

NOTES

1. After blending the mixture, try rolling them into balls. If the mixture is too dry, add some more dried fruits such as dates or apricots to add more moisture to the mixture
2. Dried fruits are considered to generate heat and so the poppy seeds which have cooling properties are added to counteract that. And therefore, it’s an optional ingredient.