Dry Fruit Laddu

Smitha Kalluraya

Course Dessert

Cuisine Indian

Servings 20 number

Chop all the dry fruits to thin long pieces .
Dry roast all the flavoring ingridients ie cardamom , cloves,mace etc and crush to powder .
Dry roast poppy seeds such that they are aromatic .
Take a kadai /a pan and take a tbsp of ghee. Add edible gum to the ghee and fry till they get nicely puffed up like popcorn . Mine was not of good quality so didn't puff as desired . Once done , keep aside . If you want slightly crush and powder roasted gum.
In the same kadai /pan , fry almonds, raisins,cashews, pista and dates separately until they are crisp .Add little ghee each time.
Add the roasted nut , roasted poppy seeds,dried coconut and flavor powder in a big bowl. Mix well.
Now make jaggery syrup . Take the kadai / pan and add jaggery . Add little water to it say 1/2 cup . Bring it to boil and let the jaggery melt and turn thick 1 string consistency.
Meanwhile heat ghee .
Pour the jaggery syrup , hot ghee into the mixed nuts mixtures .
Mix everything well .
When the mixture is warm enough to handle , take a handful of it and roll to form laddu .
Store dry fruit laddus in air tight containers and relish as and when required . Stays good for atleast a month without refrigeration .

Addition of cashew is optional .
Additional of edible gum is optional . If doing for lactating mothers , don't omit it . Edible gum is said to strengthen the backbones.
you can use any dry fruits in any proportion that you like.
You can plus or minus kopra quantity too .
Along with jaggery , you can add some red rock candy ( kallu sakkare / mishri ) too. Its very good .
IMPORTANT STEP To check syrup : To test jaggery syrup readiness - Keep a small plate/cup with cold water ready by stove side.When you take a bit of hot syrup and put it in water, you should be able to make a ball of it. Then the syrup is ready.
If you want you can reduce the ghee quantity .
addu should be shaped when the mix is still warm else you might not be able to give shape.