Before Indian Weddings, The Party Starts Early with Ladoos
The labor-intensive process of making and rolling ladoos, is half the work and twice the fun when women band together and make it a party — before the party.
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In Indian culture, sweets are synonymous with joyful occasions, and few confections are more significant than ladoos are at weddings. The golf ball-sized rounds, made of flour and ghee, are produced in countless flavors across India’s various regions and often grace dessert tables during celebrations of all types. In the days leading up to a wedding, the process of hand-rolling ladoos for use during the week-long festivities is much like the tradition of tamale-making parties, or tamalada, on the night before Christmas.
In my 40 years, I witnessed my mother lovingly partake in the process alongside her pals, and my sister and I began joining in on the fun when each of us got married. In our home, traditional wedding decorations, like marigold garlands, colorful drapes, string lights and candles, would adorn the inside and outside of the house for a solid week before the actual wedding ceremony. Spare bedrooms were warmly prepared for out-of-town guests, rhythmic Bollywood songs provided a lively atmosphere from sunrise to well after sunset, and our home became one big party … before the party.
Beyond tradition, getting together to make ladoos at the start of the week is done for good reason. For us, pre-wedding functions like the mehndi ceremony, when the bride has her hands and feet decorated with henna; and the sangeet, a festive evening of song and dance with both the bride and groom’s family and friends in attendance, were held in the home. That meant we were hosting loads of guests each night, and having hundreds of ladoos on hand made for a great addition to the evening’s dessert table. When packed in compact boxes, they made excellent take-home gifts for guests, and most importantly, they would be used in the wedding ceremony itself as a sweet offering during the puja. So what exactly goes into the ladoo-making process?
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For motichoor ladoos, one of the most common types associated with Indian weddings, the process can be time consuming, but not necessarily difficult. Boondi, small balls of gram flour, are fried in ghee in batches, then incorporated with a hot syrup made with saffron and sugar. Each step requires careful attention, as the boondis must be cooked to just the right consistency before being added to the syrup directly from the frying pan. The syrup helps soften the boondis and the mixture becomes the base for the ladoos. Finally, the ladoos are rolled by hand into 1- to 2-inch balls and are ready to eat. As a child, I found it a great thrill to taste the ladoo mixture, in the same way that children do with cake batter or cookie dough.
Suffice it to say, having too many cooks in the kitchen is a good problem to have when making ladoos. Having different people dedicated to the various steps takes the pressure off a single person, and speeds up the process of producing hundreds of ladoos at a time. Half the fun of the gathering is in the companionship, the sharing of stories and chai while working, and all of the taste testing along the way.
Cheetie Kumar, the Indian American chef-owner of (now shuttered) Garland and soon-to-be-open Ajja restaurants in Raleigh, North Carolina, feels just as nostalgic about the beloved sweet treat. Kumar spent her formative years living in Chandigarh in the Indian state of Punjab, and recalls her cousins having a double wedding when she was six years old, for which her mother made pinni ladoos.
“I remember my mom’s hands glistening from rolling these rich wheat balls – I don’t know what else to call them,” she says, laughing. “She used to make pinni with roasted wheat flour, sugar and a lot of ghee – enough ghee to make them into balls – and she added in nuts and raisins.”
Like me, Kumar enjoyed eating the ladoo mixture as her mother was shaping them. She admits she had a voracious sweet tooth, and wholly indulged when there were sweets around, but this moment felt special. “I remember it was my first time drinking chai and having pinni.”
For Sana Javeri Kadri, founder and CEO of sustainably focused spice brand Diaspora Co., memories of enjoying ladoos were not limited to weddings. The third generation Mumbaikar has fond memories of visiting one of the original locations of the now famed Brijwasi mithai shop in Mumbai. “I remember getting a few rupees from my grandmother and buying moti choor ladoos for the walk home from school,” says Kadri.
More recently the entrepreneur, who continues to split her time between Oakland, California and Mumbai, India, says she tried her own hand at making moti choor ladoos during a gathering with her friends who run Bombay Sweet Shop, Bombay Canteen and O Pedro. “We met up in the Bombay Sweet Shop space and made ladoos. It was so bloody hard, and it takes such expertise,” she admits. “You have to labor over a flame and fry things perfectly.”
The challenge is something that eases over time. Today, I can’t confidently say that I could churn out hundreds of ladoos for a wedding – let alone a double wedding – but hopefully, along with my sister, our friends and with guidance from our mothers, one day we will proudly say we did. With sons, daughters, nieces and nephews to taste our ladoo mixtures as we roll, the hope is that the cherished tradition of ladoo-making parties during weddings, and otherwise, remains everlasting.
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