Peanut Chestnut Ladoos
These peanut ladoos are made with just four ingredients and they come together in no time. Nutty peanuts, ghee, sweetness from sugar and nutty sweetness from chestnut flour which is a bonus ingredient. Chestnut flour is gluten free and much more nutritious.
These ladoos are my husband’s favorite thing. He grew up eating these ways more than I did. When he studied in USA, I use to send him these peanut ladoos but with a twist, dipped in chocolate. They taste even better with chocolate. Since then, I have been putting chocolate in so many Indian desserts or mithais.
These ladoos have all the ingredients that we can eat during a fast. So, they are also popular during fasting months. I made some few months ago for my husband’s birthday as a little surprise for him. I decided to make them again as we are traveling next week, and I want to carry some with us, and it also happens to be Ganesh Chaturthi so works out just fine with all these excuses. I get to also share this easy recipe with you all.
There are so many variations for this ladoo recipe. I love making them this way, my Baa used to make sing pak completely different recipe, but it was made with peanuts. Peanut ladoo with jaggery is famous during kite festival month too.
How to make these ladoos and ingredients, storage
The recipe starts by lightly roasting the peanuts in a pan. Once they are roasted and cools down, they are grinded in a food processor.
Then we take some ghee, roast the chestnut flour, add the crushed peanuts and add powdered sugar to the mix. That’s it. I can’t tell how quick this recipe is and the ladoos store very well for few days either in fridge or at room temperature if the weather is cool.
Some tips
Ghee is important. It imparts that very tasty notes. If you have problem shaping the ladoos, you can add a tbsp or two of more ghee. It helps in binding the ladoos. You can also spread the mix in a pan, cut squares and diamonds. Just that it can’t be called ladoos.
Once you add powdered sugar, turn off the heat. The sugar will melt in residual heat. If you keep the heat on, sugar will continue melting and start releasing water, eventually making syrup.
Peanuts are roasted so that the raw smell and flavor goes away. Slightly extra roasted should be fine. But too much charred peanuts will not taste great.
You can skip chestnut flour, but why its so delicious and healthy too. It’s gluten free too. My mom sometimes skips it, it will still taste good.
Ofcourse, sweetness can be adjusted to your taste buds. I think ¾ cup is perfect.
Ladoos make great snack for kids for school, or great snack while traveling. They can survive few days at room temperature.
Few more similar recipes of Ladoos you may like are
Peanut Chestnut Ladoos
Ingredients
- 1 cup roasted peanuts
- 2-3 tbsp ghee
- ½ cup chestnut flour
- ¾ cup powdered sugar
Instructions
- In a pan on low to medium heat, roast the peanuts without their skin. Keep stirring in between to avoid burning them. Once roasted, remove them from the pan and let them cool down.
- Once cool, grind them in a food processor. I like to grind it medium consistency. Not too fine or not too coarse. The right texture. Leave it aside.
- In the same pan or a new clean pan, add 2 tbsp of ghee. As soon as ghee melts, add the chestnut flour and start roasting the flour too. Keep stirring it continuously. The flour will release nutty smell and in just 3-4 minutes, it should be perfectly roasted.
- Immediately add crushed ground peanuts to it. Mix it well.
- Add powdered sugar and turn off the heat. Mix the sugar very well and make sure it gets distributed evenly. Leave the mixture aside to cool down for few minutes.
- Once the mixture cools down to touch or when you feel slightly comfortable, divide the mixture into equal parts using ice cream scoop or a smallest measuring cup. Start forming rounds. Its usually easy to make rounds when the mixture is slightly warm to touch.
- If you have trouble forming ladoos or rounds, add a tbsp of ghee. It helps binding it.
- Serve the ladoos immediately or store them in a air-tight container for later.
Happy Ganesh Chaturthi and may Bappa heal everyone’s misery and bring happiness to all.