How to make churma laddoo at home, a Rajasthani festival sweet

A string of festivals begins after Navratri, and the season brings feasts of sweet and savoury dishes. Many households prepare both on festive occasions.

Those who buy sweets from the market should be careful, as adulteration in sweets has been rising. Fresh, healthy sweets can be made in your own kitchen. One such recipe is churma laddoo, mostly made in Rajasthan.

Ingredients: 2 bowls of wheat flour, 1 bowl of fine semolina (rava), half a bowl of gram flour (besan), 1 bowl of desi ghee (as required) and 1 bowl of jaggery. Also needed are small quantities of cashews, almonds and pistachios, 2 spoons of poppy seeds, half a spoon of cardamom powder and lukewarm water to knead the dough.

Method: Take 2 bowls of wheat flour and mix in 1 bowl of semolina. The semolina must be fine; if it is coarse, grind it in a mixer.

Put the gram flour, wheat flour and semolina in a vessel and add 3 spoons of ghee. Mix all the dry ingredients well by hand. Then add lukewarm water a little at a time and knead a stiff dough.

Divide the dough into two portions and make small balls. Fry the balls in hot oil or ghee.

Next, heat ghee in a pan on the stove, fry the almonds and cashews and take them out on a plate. In the same ghee, add mawa and keep roasting it on a low flame.

Now put half a bowl of ghee in a pot, crumble the fried balls and add them. When the crumbs are well roasted in the ghee, add ground sugar and pieces of the fried dry fruits, and switch off the gas. When the mixture cools, shape it into round laddoos.