Soan Ladoo Recipe / Chana Dal Laddu Recipe / Kadalai Paruppu Ladoo

I have not seen anyone other than our family making this recipe. This unique recipe belongs to my grandma and passed on to our generations. This ladoo is called Soan ladoo because "Soan" in hindi meaning "golden". These ladoo represents golden balls and tastes delicious too.

Soan Ladoo Recipe

I had already posted this recipe long back in 2009 and re-posting again with best pictures
Ingredients
Bengal gram dal / Chana dal - 2 cups
Sugar - 2 cups
Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp
Cashewnuts broken - 15 nos
Ghee - 1/4 cup
Oil - 1/4 cup
Orange / Kesari Color - few pinch

Kadalai Paruppu Ladoo

Method
1. Soak chana dal in water for 2 hours, grind soaked chana dal to slightly coarse paste.
2. Heat ghee and oil in a pan, when hot add cashewnuts fry till golden brown, drain and set aside.
3. In the same hot oil add the ground chana dal paste and 1/2 cup water, reduce heat and mix well.
4. Keep stirring and cook chana dal paste on low heat for about 15 mins until water is absorbed, raw smell leaves and chana dal mixture becomes pale yellow in color.
5. When chana mixture is well cooked add sugar, cashewnuts, cardamom powder and kesari color.
6. Now chana dal mixture will loosen as the sugar starts to melt, keep stirring until the mixture turns to thicken again like Kesari.
7. Remove pan from heat and allow to become warm.
8. When ladoo mixture is warm enough to handel with your bare hands grease your palm with ghee and start rolling lemon sized dough into ladoos.
Decorate ladoos with nuts if desired.

Chana Dal Laddu