Dates and Dry Fruits Laddu

Anything which says-‘weight watchers special’,or ‘good to snack on while on a diet’ or better still ‘tasty and low-fat’ catches my immediate attention.Sadly,most of the recipes I come across use items which are not easily available in India.So the next option is to carefully choose such recipes which you can easily recreate with items which are readily available.

I had some really soft,the melt in the mouth types of Dates so I was frantically searching for recipes using the same.Of course the first choice was Dates cake,but I am on a no-baking mode these days,God knows why.Some time back,I bought a Dry fruits Laddu from Adyar Ananda bhavan for a friend.It was tasty and great and all that,but it had less of dry fruits and more of Coconut and Dates.

So that gave me the idea.Got lots of recipes while I searched for Dates Laddu and finally I chose Sailaja's Dates Burfi with Nuts.Mainly because it uses very little amount of ghee[just 1 tbsp]and then there’s no added sugar,which makes it almost fat-free.

Dates and Dry fruits Laddu

Recipe adapted from Sailaja's Khajoor Laddu

Ingredients

Dates – 1 cup,deseeded and chopped

Dry fruits-Nuts – ½ cup[I used Cashewnuts,Almonds,Figs and Raisins]

Ghee – 1 tbsp

Dessicated coconut* – 2-3 tbsps[Optional]

Method

In a thick bottomed kadai,add the ghee and roast the dry fruits-nuts on a slow flame for 2-3 minutes.

Remove from the kadai and keep aside.

In the same pan,add the dates and keep stirring till the dates start to melt**.

Mix the roasted nuts and dry fruits with the melted dates and mix well.

When it is still warm,make small laddus and roll them in dessicated coconut.

*I found the laddus lot less sweet for my standards:),so I mixed some powdered sugar along with the dessicated coconut and then rolled the laddus in them.

**While I was stirring the dates,they started burning slightly,so I immediately removed the dates from the kadai and Microwaved the dates on high power for 1 minute.That solved the problem and the dates were melted perfectly.