Badam "Bull" Ladoo

Good evening Camille,

We have never met before, but my name is Balram. I need some help and I need it quick. I have a younger brother; his name is Krishna. Well...Krishna is a bit of a show off. I am sure he doesn't mean to be......well.....no, I think he totally means to be. Now do not get me wrong, I love my brother, but man he really pushes my buttons. Like the other day, I was taking about killing the biggest and most aggressive bull. He told me that killing it was not wise and blah blah blah. Then he tells me he is going to ride him.......I am sorry......when did riding a bull become wiser than killing it? Yeah, it sounded really ignorant to me at the time. Well, he actually did it. He rode the bull through the whole village. I asked him how and he told me he gained the bull's trust with the sweet taste of jaggery and his flute. Look, I do not play the flute as well as my brother.... and I really don't cook. I want to gain the bull's trust though. I do not want to be shown up. I do not know how to bake, cook, or anything, so I need a really easy recipe. All I know is that the bull loves jaggery. Please send me a jaggery filled recipe as soon as you can.

From Balram

How to Make Badam Ladoo (Bull Style)

Hello everyone!

The next recipe we will be cooking up is.......Badam Ladoo!

Balram needs help gaining a bull's trust. Lucky for Balram, Badam Ladoo will do the trick with its intense jaggery flavor. Badam Ladoo is an almond energy ball. It is similar in taste and texture to cookie dough (in my opinion)!

Step 1 Brown Coconut: Place coconut in a heavy bottom pan. GENTLY roast the coconut on medium/low heat for about 2-5 minutes or until it is golden. Keep an eye on it because it will burn quick. Take off the heat.

Step 4 Get The Texture Right: For this step you can play around with the wet ingredients and flavor bits! You can use ghee*, almond butter, peanut butter, or even powdered peanut butter (just make sure you add water to powdered peanut butter before adding it in). I also added dark chopped chocolate chips and chopped almonds for texture. The end result should be able to be formed into a ball. Think cookie dough texture!

*In traditional Badam Ladoo you brown almonds and raisins in a pan with ghee. Once they are brown you use the melted ghee as a binder for the Badam Ladoo!

Step 5 Roll Roll Roll the Ladoo: Now make the dough into balls. You can eat them like this or put them in the freezer to harden up a bit (my personal favorite!)

Additional Notes (Author's Note)

Okay....I take back everything I said about not loving the taste of jaggery! These balls were so incredible. The jaggery has a wonderful flavor.

It is important to note I took a lot of short cuts with this recipe and this is not traditional Badam Ladoo. I had a lot of fun adapting these treats to what I had in my pantry and what I enjoy. Traditionally you roast almonds and grind them into a flour instead of using coconut flour. I did not have the time to do that and I did not have almond flour, so I just used some coconut flour I had in the pantry. Another shortcut I took was skipping the roasting almonds and raisins in ghee. I would love to try this, but I was trying to get these done as quick as possible. So if you try these out, don't be scared to replace stuff. Switch out jaggery with sugar or honey (I would not add as much). Add quick oats or M&Ms. Skip the cardamom powder, add cinnamon.

I retold the story in an email format. As for the story itself, I was inspired by "Krishna rides Hastin" from the Krishna series on Epified's YouTube channel. In this story, Krishna decides he is going to ride the most aggressive bull in the village. He plays his flute for the bull and uses the sweet taste of jaggery to build trust. He ends up ridding the bull, showing kindness is the greatest strength. I instantly loved this story and actually wanted to write a story for my blog from it. When I was brainstorming though, I realized it could fit really well in this cooking project. Jaggery is used by Krishna to gain Hastin's (the bull) trust.

I used all the same characters, but I switched from third person to first person. I used Balram, Krishna's older brother, because I felt like it added more depth and relatability to the story. I wanted to show a competitive dynamic. Balram has a good relationship with Krishna, but it is not perfect. Please let me know if you like the style of story or if you have any other ideas (like a cool name for it). Any advice is helpful! Thank you for reading.

Bibliography: Krishna Part B: "Krishna rides Hastin" by Epified.

Images without captions were all personal images taken by Camille Fichera