Gond ke Laddoo Recipe | Edible Gum Laddu

Gond is called edible gum in English. Gond provides heat to the body, so food items (for example, laddoo, panjiri, chikki, etc) made with gond are great to eat during winters.  The heat in gond is said to help lactating mothers produce more milk, so gond ke laddoo made with other nutritious ingredients are excellent for new mothers after delivery.

People make Gond ke Laddu in such different ways.  Some fry the gond separately, whereas some add poppy seeds (khus khus), dried dates (khaarak), cardamom powder (elaichi), saffron (kesar), and what nots.  I have tasted those laddoo and I can tell you that when the gond is fried individually in ghee, even after it is mixed well in the flour and made into laddoo, once you bite into that gond it gives this weird taste of ghee in the mouth.  And the laddoo that has 10 different ingredients in it, so many things kinda just mess it up.  That's why I love the simplicity of my mother-in-law's recipe for Gond ka Laddoo.

Gond ke Laddoo
My mother-in-law’s recipe
Makes 15-20 laddoo (depending on size)

2 cups melted clarified butter (ghee)
5 cups (750 gm) whole wheat flour (aata)
1½ cups almonds (badam)
½ cup edible gum (gond)
1 tsp black peppercorns (sabut kali mirch)
1 ½ Tbsp dry ginger powder (saunth)
1 ¾ cup (about 300 gm) powdered sugar

Prep: Use a chopper to cut almonds into small pieces or pulse almonds in a blender so they are partly powdered partly broken. You have to pulse instead of grinding continuously because almonds release oil and by grinding continuously you don't want to extract all their oil in the blender.  Keep aside.

1.  Heat ghee in a large pan on medium heat.  Once hot, add all the whole wheat flour and mix well, stirring continuously until the color turns light brown and a wonderful aroma fills your kitchen.

2.  Add gond and mix well.  You will hear the gond sizzle and expand in size as it cooks in the heat of the whole wheat flour.  Mix well and stir until you don’t hear the sizzle anymore.  Add pulsed almonds and mix well, stir until almonds turn golden brown. 

3.  Switch off the heat and let the mixture come to room temperature, then add black peppercorns + dry ginger powder + powdered sugar and mix very well.  You don’t add the ginger powder when the mixture is hot otherwise the powder will scorch.  And powdered sugar is not added until the mixture cools down because heat will cause sugar to melt and caramelize and that will spoil the texture of laddoo.

4.  Take a small portion of the cooled down/room temperature mixture to form laddoo balls in your palms.  Gently press and roll the laddoo in your palm without pressing it too hard, otherwise the ghee that is filled in the puffed up gond gets squeezed and releases.  Prepare all the gond ke laddoo and keep aside.

The gond ka laddu will be very soft, may be shapeless and appear very shiny while forming into balls.  But once they cool down completely by the next day they will firm up and not look shiny at all.  However, if you have OCD like me and don’t like the shapeless laddoo the next day, with the warmth of your palms you can still shape the laddoo into a perfect round without pressing too hard or without breaking it.

It's just the constant stirring that takes the most effort, but apart from that making these Gond ke Laddoo is pretty simple.  You can also feel free to add some desiccated or shredded coconut to the mixture after switching off the heat.

The sweetness is perfect and moderate.  You can feel the crunch from gond, some bits of almonds here and there, and a bite of black pepper that balances the sweetness and no, it does not taste spicy. 

These wholesome gond ke laddoo have ingredients that are great for new and nursing mothers, such as: almonds are packed with minerals and proteins, edible gum (gond) helps with back pain and provides heat to the body that helps in milk production, ghee helps gain weight and give strength to bones, whole wheat flour is a healthy choice, black peppercorns help clear the throat and balance the grease of ghee and sweetness of sugar, and the dry ginger powder (saunth) helps with body pain and gives heat to body.

I love eating these gond ke laddoo once in the morning and once at night with a glass of plain warm milk.  And I take a few laddoo along in a ziploc when I go out.  I love 'em.  I hope you will love 'em as much as I do. 

Enjoy.

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