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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Brown Pittye Unde (Laddoos)

Hey everyone.. it's finally time for some sugar!!! :)

Fig.1 Brown Pittye Unde

This is a dish I made up by chance.. ok, I admit it, by mistake actually. I was making Finger Millet Cookies from Aayi's Recipes. And instead of using a real cup measure, ignorantly, I used those Corelle style Mugs! Obviously all my measurements for ragi flour and sugar were in Mugs and the butter was in terms of butter-sticks (which translates to real cup measures). So that attempt was botched in terms of cookies. My "dough" ended up dry and crumbly. And I wasn't able to make cookies out of it.

But I was able to press the dough into laddoos!! Thus were discovered these laddoos. And the best part is that they taste really great!! Even hard-core people in my family who say, "Ragi? Ugh!" have been known to love these laddoos. Mind you, I have never told them this is Ragi. That explains the arcane name "Brown Pittye Unde" i.e. Laddoos made with brown powder/flour. Sneaky, sneaky!! ;) After my cunning attempts to mask the Ragi-ness of these.. don't you go about calling them anything else! Otherwise sooner or later it may get around to my folks!

Ingredients:
Ragi flour - 2 and 2/3 cup
Sugar - 1 and 1/3 cup
Melted butter - 1/2 cup (can add a tad bit more if it is difficult to bind the laddoos, this is the minimum quantity that I have fine-tuned for myself over time)
Cardomom - 6 or 7 pods, skinned and ground into a fine powder  

Procedure:
1) Roast ragi flour on a wide pan for about 10-15 minutes on fairly low heat. This step is very important and Shilpa mentions that if the ragi is not roasted well the taste is "muddy". And I agree. When you roast this, continue till you get the most heavenly sweet and earthy smell from your ragi. Trust me, after the roasting the ragi becomes so fragrant that no one will know this used to be ragi!
2) Add sugar and powdered cardamom to the ragi. Mix well. I turn off the heat at this point. But the pan is still hot.
3) Add the melted butter and mix well. Let this cool just till you can handle the mixture.
4) Press fistfulls into laddoos. Arrange them on a foil lined cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes at 300 degree F.

Shilpa uses baking powder and her ragi/butter quantities are also different. Then she bakes her cookies. Since I have followed most of her procedure, I continue to bake my laddoos, just to be sure that the butter is cooked through and the shelf-life of the laddoos is decent. Since there is no baking powder in my laddoos, they do not expand. Maybe the baking step could be skipped if you are not ultra-finicky about shelf-life. In the past (with the baking) I have got about 3 weeks un-refrigerated shelf-life for sure.. by this time they have been consumed usually. These quantities made me about 20 laddoos.

This post goes to Nupur's Blog-Bites: Adaptation event at One Hot Stove.

Cheers and happy cooking, everyone!

16 comments:

Nupur said...

You made a great comeback there by turning a potential mistake into something delicious! Way to go, thanks for the entry.

indosungod said...

Ragi flour is a tasty tasty flour if we can make some lovely recipes like this one here.

Niloufer Riyaz said...

its a perfect adaptation. Nice work girl!!! n nice recipe too

Pavithra Srihari said...

hey lovely ladoos ..that was definitely not a stupid mistake .glad you made that mistake..Hee Hee ..

Apt entry for Nupur's event .

SS blogs here said...

Nupur, thanks! I also learnt that 1 Mug = 1 and 1/3 cup! :D

Indo.. I wish Ragi didn't have such a bad name. It is a really nice flour!

Niloufer, thanks for the compliment.

Pavithra, thanks! I wish all mistakes could be saved like this! :)

Sushma Mallya said...

Nice to know abt this laddhu too , well havent heard abt this till now but looks really like a worth trying one..thanks for sharing ss

Simplyfood said...

Interesting adaption of cookies to ladoos.

Panchpakwan said...

Nice recipe SS..Looks good.

SS blogs here said...

Sushma.. hehe.. no one I know has heard of this laddoo either. Then again I had not heard of Ragi Cookies either. :)

Nayana and Jyothi.. thanks for the compliment.

Thanks for visiting everyone! Cheers and have a great day!

Unknown said...

They look tempting. !!!

Cham said...

I have made long back ragi cookies too but ur mishaps turned into new invention!

SpicyTasty said...

I have some ragi flour sitting in my pantry. I am sure going to try this.

SS blogs here said...

Thanks Priya! :)

Cham, nice to see you here! I should re-try the ragi cookies again sometime (now that I know all about the difference in a cup and a mug!) ;)

SpicyTasty, if you try it let me know how it works out for you. Thanks!

M D said...

Woooh, Raagi laddoos! Truly delicious and healthy treats!

SS blogs here said...

Thanks, Mallika! Cheers! :)

Unknown said...

great i love ladoos its awesome i love them

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