Antina Unde/ Gond Laddoo

 I always complain I never get things right the first time. But let me tell you how my mind works. Take for example this particular unDe. I see in the recipe that I should roughly chop dry fruits. Being the lazy/smart a** I am, I try to do this in the mixie. I pulse and see that it is very unevenly chopped, so I run couple more rounds and unintentionally powder them. For some reason, I do this with all the nuts, even after seeing that it didn’t work the first time. So instead of having coarsely chopped nuts, I now have their respective powders. 

To fix this I take couple extra and chop them by hand. Then I beat myself up for not doing this in the first place. Now I have double quantity of these, and I am not sure how much jaggery syrup to make to accommodate these extra things, that too in powder form!! So I add little extra jaggery, you know just in case, and turns out I added lot more than needed. So now to fix this I add almond flour to adjust the consistency. At this point my head is hurting, and I know that the littlest of the littlest thing can trigger me any minute…tick, tick, tick :))

Seriously, if I get a penny for every time I use almond flour to fix my dessert…… 

God bless that person who thought of selling almond flour ready made. Almond flour ki jai !! 

  

Coming to the recipe - this is a very poushtidaayaka unde, especially given to women during postpartum care, or when girls hit puberty. I would say women any age should consume these to keep ourselves strong.

Happy Mother’s Day ladies!! Stay strong!!

Ingredients(15 -20 medium to small laddoos)

Dry dates - chopped - 1/2 cup

Edible Gum - 1/4 cup

Jaggery - 1/2 cup

Water - 1/4 cup

Ghee - as required - 2-3 tsp

Dry kopra/ desiccated coconut - 1/2 to 1 cup

Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp

Almond, Cashew, Pista, Raisin, Poppy seeds - more or less 1 tbsp each

Almond flour - 4 heaped tbsp(not in the original)

Method

Deseed dry dates and chop them roughly. Run this in mixie to coarse powder consistency. Keep this aside.

In a skillet, add a tsp of ghee, add edible gum. Roast in medium flame till they puff up like pop corn. Take them out in a mixing bowl. After they cool down a bit you can either crush them with your hands or pulse them in a mixie. 

To the same skillet, add little ghee, add roughly chopped  almonds, cashews and pista. Roast in medium flame until they change color. Add these to the mixing bowl. Add raisins to the skillet. Sauté till they puff up. Add this to the mixing bowl. If the ghee is less at any time while sautéing add little extra ghee. Add poppy seeds, and roast in medium flame. Add coarsely ground dates now and roast for few minutes. Take this out in the same mixing bowl. Add dry copra and roast till it turns light brown. Add this to the mixing bowl. Add cardamom powder. Mix well. 

In the same skillet, add jaggery and water. Bring it to a boil in medium flame and bring it to 1 string consistency. How to check - when taken from the tip of the ladle, in between your fingers, you should get a string like consistency. Off the stove and add the dry fruits mixture to this, mix well. At this point, mine was little runny, so I added around 4 tbsp of almond flour and mixed well. Grease your hands and make laddoos. Store in air tight container.   

Recipe Source - “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KFGSGczvos”

Notes - 

• This another time, I added finely chopped regular dates instead of dry dates. It came out well too. I just chopped them finely and added to warm skillet and sautéed for few seconds and mixed them with rest of the ingredients.