Shital's-Kitchen: Kids Love Boondi

Lots of fond memories of these little sweet balls or Boondis! Boond means a drop and a ball produced by a drop is a Boondi.

As a child, this was one of my favorite sweets. My Fua/Uncle (my dad's sister's husband) use to get a boondi ladoo for me everyday, while I stayed with them to attend a kindergarten school closer to their house. Chocolates and candies were not a much preferred treat by my family. I would look forward to my every evening sweet snack :) A Boondi Ladoo, a big ball made of these tiny sweet balls pressed together in between the palms. :)

While I was thinking of the menu for my Ashtami pooja, I knew I wanted to make boondis as a sweet treat/prasad/offering for the Goddess. Kids too love boondis, and it is really easy for them to pick each of these sweet balls and eat!

Also, I wanted to upload pictures and show you various steps for making these delicate but easy droplets. So, if you have a slightest desire and love for these, you should not wait to try out a batch. It is not difficult at all, and the pleasure of making these intricate sweet balls for your kids or family or offering God is immense! Remember, it is okay to make mistakes. In fact, you gain more wisdom learning from your mistakes :)

Start with preparing a sugar syrup.

(Remember I prepared this for more than10 people. You could use half of this measurement)

In a heavy bottom pan mix 2 cups of sugar with 2 cups water. Mix well. Boil and simmer for 5 to 7 minutes.

Lovely flavor and color obtained from this beautiful spice, Saffron or Kesar. I do not use food color. If you are okay with using food color, add some color of your choice to the chickpea flour batter.

In my mortar and pestle, I powder Kesar strands. The amount of saffron used is per your choice of flavor. Since this is a pricey spice, using fewer strand than what I do works too!

Simmer sugar syrup for 7 minutes. It should be done, but the best way of testing it is by putting a drop on a clean plate. As the drop of sugar syrup cools, rub it in between your index finger and thumb to produce and sticky strand. If it feel watery and diluted, boil the syrup longer.

Add powdered saffron and boil for another 2 minutes.

I also add few stands as they look pretty!

Add few cardamon seeds and powder for flavor.

Sugar syrup is ready. Turn off the heat, and set this aside to slightly cool.

For Boondi batter.

In 2 cups of chickpea flour/besan/gram flour, pour a cup of water to make a smooth paste. Add more water while whisking to produce a smooth pouring batter. You might need somewhere between 1 1/2- 2 cups of water.

Here the batter consistency is important. Thicker batter will produce boondis that are long, tail like appearance/tear drop shape. That is not what we want. We want drops or boondis that are fairly round in shape and a thinner batter helps make that . Pictures below will illustrate tear drop boondis as well as perfectly round boondis. If you get boondis that produce a tail, do not worry, add a little water to the batter and try again.

Here is a smooth batter, but it is quite thick.

In a round frying pan heat ghee/clarified butter or oil.

When I make sweet like jalebis or boondis, I prefer ghee for taste and richness of the sweet.

Here is my frying ladle with holes to produce boondis. This works fine!

You could buy a special boondi ladle too. Its already on my shopping list in my next India trip :)

When the ghee for frying is hot enough (not too hot to darken your boondis) try droping a drop of batter. If the batter settles at the bottom and flattens, then the ghee is not ready for frying. If the drop of batter darkens, the ghee is over heated.

When you drop the batter, it should immediately start floating. This will fry well and produce and light and crisp boondi.

Hold the ladle over hot ghee.

Put a spoonful of batter on the ladle.

As the batter flows off the holes, it forms small balls and fry in hot ghee.

Thick batter produces boondis with tails or tear drop shape.

This is not what we are looking for :)

Since I did not want to waste the batch and would not make any difference to the taste, I add these fried boondis to the hot freshly prepared sugar syrup.

** REMEMBER** Sugar syrup needs to be warm to hot but not steaming. If you see some steam coming out of the syrup, let it rest for 2-3 minutes before adding boondis. steaming syrup will result into mushy boondis.

My second batch with a better batter consistency yields better shaped boondis.

This was perfect! Yipeee!!

Add nuts and dried fruits of your choice. Mix well and let them rest for few hours or over night to absorb flavor and color.

Although my boondis for the Ashtami Pooja were ready, I had to make another batch without nuts. Yes, this is for someone special who does not enjoy nuts in her sweets :) my friend Parinaaz!

So tried this with a cup of chickpea flour with 3/4 cup of water.

Made a smooth lump less batter and followed the same steps like earlier.