Condensed milk and coconut laddoos
These sweets are fashioned after a popular Indian sweet called laddoo, also spelled laddu. Associated with festivals and celebrations, they can be made from a variety of ingredients including wheat flour, rice flour, besan (chickpea flour) , semolina and even puffed rice. They’re typically sweetened with jaggery, enriched with plenty of ghee and flavoured with goodies like coconut, almonds, cashews, dates, spices, poppy seeds and raisins. In India they’d use khoya, a concentrated milk product as the base, and not the sweetened condensed milk we’ve gone with. But this is strictly a cheat’s-style of laddoo; we're not making any claims of authenticity. What we are making a claim of though is of ridiculous ease and total deliciousness, especially if you’re a coconut fan. We threw a little white chocolate in ours, using the fabulous Whittakers West Coast Buttermilk Caramelised White Chocolate. And a mighty fine choice that was too… but you can use any decent white chocolate of your choosing.
MAKES ABOUT 30
200g fine desiccated coconut
1 x 397g can sweetened condensed milk
¼-⅓ tsp ground cardamom
75g (½ cup) chopped white chocolate
75g (½ cup) pistachios
Place the coconut in a saucepan over medium heat, then stir with a wooden spoon for about 4 minutes or until heated through but not beginning to brown. Add the condensed milk, then stir for 2 minutes or until heated through. Add the cardamom and chocolate, stir to combine, then remove from the heat and keep stirring until the chocolate has melted. Cool slightly.
Meanwhile, place the pistachios in a food processor and process until very finely ground. When the condensed milk mixture is cool enough to handle and is firm-ish, take heaped teaspoonfuls and roll it into balls, rolling each into the ground pistachios, to coat, as you go.
