Memories of my mother making this exquisite confection abound. She'd whip it up as a treat hoping to surprise me after I woke up from my afternoon nap as a child, but somehow the hum from the coffee grinder always ensured that I'd be up & awake to watch her making it., she'd freshly powder the special garbanzo flour, followed by the sugar & cardamom, melt the ghee & simultaneously toast a generous handful of broken cashews as it melted. She would then combine the sugar, flour, cashews and the hot ghee, and immediately scoop up a fistful of the scalding hot mixture to shape into a ball, There would be a momentary wince of pain flashing across her eyes as she laid down this glorious cream colored ping pong ball of pure love on a plate. When I asked her why she had to go through the pain of making it, her answer would always be, "it transfers my love onto the ladoo, and I know you've received it when I see you enjoy these.. Now wait for them to cool before you pick one". <br />The flour in this dish is made from roasted chickpeas. I'm not sure about the process that converts the chickpea into this powdery state, I know for a fact that it is NOT the chickpea flour sold as 'Besan'. <br /> <br />The Roasted split garbanzo is available in Indian grocery stores and is referred to as 'Dalia Dal' (in Hindi) or 'pottu kadalai' (in Tamil). Its firm to touch but will crumble into a cornflour-like soft powder when pressed between the fingers. Taste the whole pea before you powder it to use in the recipe, since they tend to get rancid pretty quickly. You need to have fresh tasting starting material here! <br /> <br />I've opted to use confectioners sugar instead of powdering sugar for this recipe and molded the confection using miniature paper muffin cups. The love gets automatically transmitted via blue-tooth!

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