Besan Peda: Chickpea Flour Sweets

Few weeks back, I had asked my 4 year old if he wanted some cheesecake, and he had declined saying that he wanted Besan Laddoo. Few months that we were in Kolkata, made him a lover of all things sweet. We Bangalis are known for eating sweets and there is a sweet shop almost at every corner of each street. We are lucky that we have a store named 'Brij Mohan' about 10mi from home here which sells absolutely yummy Besan Laddus and Gulab Jamuns and we treated him to some the following weekend. Since then I was thinking of making some Besan Pedas for him, but never got around to it until today. Besan Laddus and Besan Pedas are more or less similar but there are many variations of the recipe. This is one of the easiest and quickest recipes, and it yielded about 4 Pedas, just enough for my son to eat over the next couple of days. Considering the amount of ghee that went in, the husband (unwillingly) and I decided to give it a skip. We tasted, of course!

Ingredients:

• Chickpea Flour - 1/3 Cup
• Powdered Sugar - 3 tbsp
• Ghee (Clarified Butter) - 2 tbsp, melted
• Green Cardamom - 1/4 tsp, powdered 
• Cashews - 2-3, halved for garnishing.

In a pan dry roast the besan flour on medium heat, stirring continuously or it will burn. Keep roasting it till all the raw smell is gone. Sift and let it cool for few minutes. In the meantime nuke 2 tbsp of ghee in a microwave safe bowl. Now add the sugar and green cardamom powder to the cooled down besan flour and mix well. Now add the melted ghee while it is still hot and mix well.  The mixture should be warm. Using the palms of your hand roll the mixture into balls. I flattened out mine to make it look like Pedas and pressed a halved cashew on top. 

Let it cool down before serving. These will become little more firm.