Maladu recipe | Fried gram or roasted gram ladoo - Swasthi's Recipes (2024)

Maladu recipe made with roasted bengal gram, sweetener, ghee and cashews. These sweet balls are delicious, melt in the mouth and make for a quick sweet snack. Fried gram laddu, maa ladoo, roasted gram ladoo, hurigadale unde are the other names to these delicious mouth melting ladoos.

These are one of the quickest to make using very few ingredients for any occasions, festivals or when you have guests home. These are made in almost all South Indian states with the method being almost same.

The maladu recipe shared here requires just 4 ingredients sugar, fried gram, cardamoms and ghee. Fried gram also known as roasted bengal gram is the roasted split and skinned black chickpeas. These are mostly used to make chutney, curries and eaten as a snack.

I have also used cashews in these maa laddu which are not used by many as they prefer the mouth melting texture. These can also be made with jaggery. The method to use jaggery is slightly different and does not require so much ghee.

I have also shared that in the tips below. But use good quality jaggery powder or grated jaggery that does not have any impurities as we don’t melt the jaggery and don’t filter.

At home we also make another kind of these fried gram ladoo with jaggery, other ingredients like peanuts and copra. These are called as thambittu unde & are offered to god during Naga panchami and ganesh chaturthi.

For more ladoo recipes, you can check
Coconut ladoo
Besan ladoo
Rava ladoo

How to make maladu

1. Add sugar and cardamoms to a blender jar. It is good to use seeds than the entire cardamom pods.

2. Make a fine powder.

3. Transfer this to a bowl. If you are using a bigger jar, you can just keep it in the jar.

4. Add fried gram.

5. Make a fine powder. You may need to scrape the sides and blend again to make very fine powder. Make sure sugar and fried gram turn to a very fine powder.

6. Set this aside together with the sugar.

7. Heat 1/4 cup ghee and fry cashews lightly if using. The ghee turns very hot.

8. Add the flour and powdered sugar. Off the stove.

9. Begin to mix well. The mixture turn really hot and begins to emit a nice aroma. At this stage the flour must get coated with the ghee well. If you see dry powder, just go on mixing. Sugar begins to melt and helps to bind the flour well. If you see any dry flour, then immediately add 1 tbsp more ghee and mix. Then add another tbsp if needed. I used 2 tbsp extra ghee apart from 1/4 cup.

10. Allow the mixture to cool down a bit. When it is still warm take small portions of this and make balls. You don’t need to grease your palms. Do not allow to cool down completely.

Store maladu in a air tight jar. These keep good for about a month in air tight jars if handled with dry hands.

Tips to make maa laddu

1. You can make the powdered sugar and fried gram powder ahead. Make the powder and store upto 2 weeks at room temperature or in the fridge for a month. Just heat ghee and then pour that to portions of the mixture to bind to maa laddu.
2. To use jaggery, powder the roasted gram first. Then add jaggery to the grinder and pulse both the roasted gram and jaggery together. Transfer to a plate and pour 1 tablespoon warm ghee at one time. Begin to mix and add as much as required to bind the ladoos.
3. The ladoos with jaggery won’t keep good for very long. Consume them within 4 to 5 days or refrigerate. To heat up, heat them in oven at 80 C or 160 F until the ladoos soften. Do not leave too long as they will begin to melt.

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