What is a bread ladoo?
Ingredients to make bread ladoo
Ghee: to help the ladoo bind well, add a teaspoon of ghee to the mix. It is good to coat your hands too when you roll the mix.
Elaichi: the classic ladoo flavour comes from the cardamom.
Cacao powder: if you like to make chocolate-flavoured ones add some cacao into the mix. This is our favourite as it tastes a bit like Nutella on bread.
Let’s make bread ladoo
Making bread ladoo is simple as it is no cook, just pulse and mix.
- Making the mix: tear up the bread into small pieces. Add the cardamom, and sugar and pulse together till it forms crumbs and looks all well mixed. If you are adding cacao, add it before pulsing.
- Shaping the ladoos: Transfer the mix to a bowl. Grease your hands with ghee and add a few drops to the mix. Now, gather a handful of the mix and shape it into a small ball.
bread ladoo
What can I hide in here?
- Nuts and seeds: powdered nuts like almonds, pecan, walnuts, and cashews all were well hidden in this bread ladoo and bound well too. Pumpkin seeds and flax seeds went well too. The trick that I used here is if the nuts or seeds powder that I am adding was white or lighter in colour, I made a regular bread ladoo. If they were darker or brown, I mixed in the cacao and made it into chocolate ladoos.
- Dates: my children were not big fans of dates. So I did hide them as date paste in my ladoo along with the addition of cacao. This makes softer ladoos that need to be kept in the refrigerator but have a lovely gentle flavour and a cake-like texture.
- Coconut: adding equal parts of desiccated coconut to the bread and the ladoo instantly tastes more like a coconut ladoo.
Here is one more, collect all the crusts and top and bottom slices that no one prefers to eat and towards the end of the week pulse them to make these ladoos.
Can I make marbled ladoos?
Absolutely yes. We love to have fun with this bread ladoo mix, so we make combinations as we go. A small portion of the white mix and the chocolate mix and rolled up into a ball to make the marbled ladoos. As a matter of fact, you can make some half-and-half one too, by carefully sandwiching the two mixes.
Meal prep and storage
Once you make the ladoos, place in an air tight box or jar. The ladoo stays well outside for 3 to 4 days and in the refrigerator for about two weeks easily. Use dry hands to pick up one from the jar so no moisture gets in.
Packing a snack box with bread ladoos
The favourites of our snack boxes are fruit, bread ladoo and some air-popped chickpeas. I find this box filling yet light. You can keep a box full of these with carrot cheese balls for snacks for the week.
Take a look at how it is done
Bread ladoo.
Equipment
- food processor
- mixing bowls and spoons.
Ingredients
for blending together
- 5-6 slices Whole meal bread
- 2 tsp jaggery or Raw Sugar
- 1-2 pods green cardamom
for making the bundles
- 2 tbsp ghee or coconut oil
for the chocolate ones
- 1 tbsp cacao
Instructions
- Tear the bread into pieces
- Add the jaggery,cardamom seeds and the bread into a dry blender/ spice mill/ food processor and pulse till you get fine crumbs.
- Melt the ghee and keep it warm.
- Add small quantity of ghee at a time and roll into a tight bundle as in video.
- The bundles will be extremely soft initially and then harden up as they sit for a while.
Stay connected
Hope you enjoy this easy-to-make ladoo recipe that you can make as a timeless dessert whether it is a snack or a treat.if this recipe comes in handy for you, rate and comment.
The recipe was originally published in Jun 2018 and has been updated to add more details and variations that have been tried. Hope you enjoy it.
Stay subscribed and see you at the next post.
I have some fond memories of these yummilicious bread balls during our stay in Penang .. lovely share Seema !
I am so glad you remembered these. It was a lovely time of our lives.
Wow, so innovative. Love this recipe. Reminds me of my childhood not because of the bread but rotis. My grandfather would tear up old rotis, mix with sticky jaggery and make ladoos for us. I would definitely sneak in dates and nuts into this recipe.
Wow seema, this is brilliant! Bread ladoo, never thought of this! Love how simple and versatile this is! Next time i m having bread, ladoo it is ! Great share!