Wheat laddu or atta ke ladoo, often touted as a healthy dessert in the winter months, carries a lot of ghee and sugar. Why not replace that with a much healthier version? Here I use walnuts and dates to make a healthy sugar-free wheat ladoo that you can make for your friends and family.
It will be the perfect dessert for you to make this Diwali. Wrap it up in a pretty little package, gift it to your neighbors, colleagues and impress them with this yummy, healthy recipe. Freeze them to store them for a month or longer .
How I upgraded Wheat Lad00
- Replace the ghee with a healthier fat containing omega-3, (a much needed essential fat for us, grain eaters) – Walnuts
- Replace the refined white sugar with dates and raw honey (optional). They add sweetness while also providing fiber and other micro-nutrients.
Step by Step pics
Roast the wheat flour in a medium flame until it is golden, nutty brown and well roasted.
This will take anywhere from 4-6 minutes. You should see the color and texture of the flour change. At the end of it, pop a tiny bit in your mouth. It should taste a bit crunchy and a well-toasted flavor (not at all raw).
Place 2 cups of walnut in a 350F oven and oven-roast for 6 minutes. Alternatively pan roast for the same time.
Well-roasted walnuts are delicious and a world of flavor apart from raw walnuts. But, if you over roast them, it will taste bitter. So, keep a keen eye on them.
Let the walnuts cool for a few minutes.
Add it to a food processor and grind until you reach a coarse butter-y stage.
If you do not have a food processor, a grinder might be a better fit for making this rather than Indian mixie. The dates need to be ground without adding water in the next stage and that might be difficult with a mixie.
Next, drop the dates one by one from the food processor tube until it is blended well and smoothly.
Now add the roasted wheat flour, elaichi powder and salt and give it a whir.
Add 2 tsp of honey to get the sweetness to a satisfying level and improve stickiness.
Here’s how I think about this- If I am making it for myself or my sister, I would not add the honey, because we both are looking for just a hint of sweetness. The dates, by themselves, keep a low profile in sweetness. But, if I was gifting it, or making it for my husband, kids, I would add the honey. The honey adds that extra oomph of sweetness necessary to make it appealing to all.
The honey also keeps the ladoos moist for a long time after they are made. With just dates, the ladoo might get dry in a week or so. If you are making these ladoos for the first time, I would highly recommend adding the honey as well.
Shape them into laddus
Recipe
Made with walnuts and dates, there is no ghee and no white sugar in this recipe. A very healthy dessert recipe!!
- 1 cup Whole wheat flour
- 2 cups Walnuts
- 2 cups Dates
- 2 tsp Raw Honey (regular honey is fine too)
- 1 pinch Salt
- 1/3 tsp Elaichi Powder
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Roast the wheat flour in a medium flame for 4-6 minutes until it is golden, nutty brown and well roasted.
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Place 2 cups of walnut in a 350F oven and roast for 6 minutes. Alternatively pan roast for the same time. Let the walnuts cool for a few minutes.
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Add it to a food processor and grind until you reach a butter stage.
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Drop the dates one by one from the food processor tube until it is blended well and smoothly.
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Now add the roasted wheat flour, elaichi powder and salt and give it a whir.
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Add required amount of honey and mix thoroughly again.
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Shape them into laddus
I used Deglet noor dates that are soft, but not as soft/expensive as Mejdool dates.
For even more sweetness, you can go up to 2.5 cups dates.
If the dates available in your area are harder, reduce the amount of dates and increase honey to improve stickiness.
Conclusion
This recipe was inspired by the very talented Sarah from mynewroots. She made a fantastic raw brownie from walnuts and dates back in 2011. Ever since, I have used that base very effectively to make other similar desserts.
I hope you give these wheat |Gothumai| atta laddus a try this festival season. If you have a diabetic family members or friends, they might appreciate these naturally-sweetened laddus more than the sugary store-bought ones.
The laddus get tastier the next day when the flavors get soaked in. Also, people often taste these laddus and comment that it is not sweet enough at the first bite. But by the time, they finish the laddu though they always insist, it is the perfect sweetness. That has been my experience. Will yours be the same or different? Share your comments down below. As always, I love hearing from you!!
Looking for more Healthy Dessert Recipes?
Try these:
Healthy kalakand (no ghee, no sugar)
Healthy Rava laddu (no ghee, no sugar)
Healthy Gulab Jamun (no frying)
Definitely this s gonna b a hit…Surely in list of Deepawali sweets…
Thanks Indu!! Appreciate the vote of confidence!!
Hi! If you don’t use ghee then how do you roast the wheat flour?
Hi Neha, I dry roast the flour in medium heat in a thick cast iron tawa. I stir it constantly to ensure it does not burn. I cook it constantly until it has a well-roasted appearance, aroma and taste. (Pop some in your mouth if you are suspicious, there will be a huge difference in taste between plain flour and well-roasted/cooked flour).
Hope that answers your question. Please feel free to post follow-up questions, if any.
As you can tell, I am jumping from one recipe to another. You should consider writing a book on healthy Indian food. I know I would buy it.
Taking traditional recipes and making them your own must take a lot of experimenting. Must take a lot of creativity to come up with the right recipe.
Thank you for your encouragement and kind words…thrilled to hear it!!
I don’t think Dates , that too 2 cups of dates are good for Diabetes, and using the regular honey is not suitable for Vegans, nor for the Diabetes. So, I want to ask whether we can use sugar substitutes like Stevia powder, will it work in binding the ladoos?
Everywhere I see recipes where they claim sugar less, by using Jaggery, dates or honey, but as a diabetic patient (who has it under control), it is difficult to make such recipes, especially Indian sweets.
I would be happy if you can tell me whether using Stevia instead of sugar / honey etc would work, have you used it?
Thank you.
This is a great question. I 100% agree that by simply using a natural sweetener, the dessert does not becomes magically good for diabetics. As you may agree, 1) portion control is half the battle. 2) Also, the level of fiber in the dessert. So, dates with little fiber > white sugar with 0 fiber. These are just continuous improvement ideas, not a cure.
Regarding Stevia, I am sure there are recipes that use Stevia. Maybe you use the normal laddu recipe, not the one above and substitute it with a sugar substitute. But, the reason I don’t use it in my house is that while I have older people having diabetes, I also have young kids. So, I personally am looking for recipes that will cater to all.
Thank you for your question, it is a very important one. Try this blog for ideas: https://dessertswithbenefits.com/ I believe she does recipes only with sugar free sweeteners.
2 cup dates sounds too much have you tried it with 1 cup? want to try this out but dont want to add so many dates, not sure how good it would be though. But the laddus sure look delicious
Hi Sharon, Yes it looks like a lot of dates, but trust me you will end with a delicious ladoo.
At about 1 cup, the mixture is a little crumbly and slightly harder to mold. At about 1.5, it is pretty good and at 2 you get really good levels of stickiness + sweetness. Hope that helps.
Thank you for your comment and good luck!!
Excellent recipe and very informative answers too
Thank you Annie!! So nice of you.
Thank you Swetha for another great recipe. I made this as a treat for my fast approaching birthday. It has
turned out really great; unfortunately I found they are very addictive!!! My dates were very moist and plump so luckily I didn’t need the honey. Being a diabetic, with such an addictive treat, it was important for me to lessen the sweetness.
Aww…So delighted to hear that. Happy birthday Rita!!
Looks yummy can I replace dates with lakanto
Hi Ruchika, I have not worked with lakanto. In this recipe, the walnuts alone will not bind everything. You need some sort of binder instead of dates – either a heated 1-string sugar syrup (chashni in Hindi) or a sticky syrup.
This looks delicious. How about I we substitute wheat flour with Almond Flour? If I do, do I need to roast that as well?
Hi Asra, I think the recipe will work with Almond Flour. However, almond flour does not needed to be roasted as heavily as raw wheat flour. Just a light roasting for 30 seconds – 1 minute may be sufficient.
Almond flour is high in fat content and too much roasting may render it rancid quickly.