Sesame laddoos (Tila laddu)

47 Comments / Sweets / By

Wish you all a very happy Sankranti.

This year I wanted to make something special for Sankranti. While growing up, this was one of my favorite festivals. For me, the most important part of this festival is Tilgul – Til (sesame seeds) and gud(jaggery). We give spoonful of tilgul to others and say – “tilgul ghya goaD goaD bola“(take tilgul and talk sweet), which finally evolved into “Take sweet, talk sweet and be sweet” in schools. We kids used to have a competition to see who collects more tilgul. It was so much fun.

Before these fancy white colored tilguls(which have become just sugar drops these days) dominated the market, either sesame laddoos or sesame seeds covered with thin layer of sugar were very popular among Konkanis. People started getting fancy with these and sesame, peanuts, cashews, saunf(badishepi) etc covered with sugar started getting popular. Making these at home is very difficult and known to only few people. They need correct consistency of sugar syrup to get perfect tilguls. At my place, even though we share these white tilguls, some people still have kept the tradition of giving the sesame laddoos along with them.

I wanted to try making tilgul at home this year. But I am very bad at making sugar syrup. Aayi correctly said I can’t make it – “neither you have patience nor have you ever seen the process. So do not attempt it”. She never says that to me, so when she stressed so much, I thought its better not to try. She promised me that she will teach me when I visit her. So I thought comparatively easier sweet – tila laddu. After burning my hands in the process and loosing patience more than once, I got these beautiful laddoos. They tasted great. Aayi always makes them in huge batches and all of them in same size and shape. Looks like I need a lot more practice. I think molasses is little more easier to handle than the normal jaggery, so if you find it, use it.

Ingredients:
1 cup sesame seeds (white)
2 tbl spn roasted, peeled and halved peanuts (ground nuts)
1/2 cup jaggery
1/2 tea spn cardamom powder
Ghee

Method:
Wash the sesame seeds in water. Drain the water and spread the seeds on a clean kitchen towel for about 15-20mins(they need not dry completely). Roast them on a medium flame till they start popping and nice aroma comes out of them. Take them off heat.

Heat jaggery with 2 tbl spn water. Traditionally it is made with molasses(the black colored liquid jaggery, do not add water if you are using molasses). I tried here with the normal solid one.
Keep the heat on medium, because jaggery gets burnt very easily.

Take little water in a plate and add a drop of the jaggery in it. The jaggery should sit like a drop without getting diluted. That shows it has reached the required consistency.
Now add the sesame seeds and peanuts. Mix well. Take off the heat, add the cardamom powder. Mix again.

Take a big spoonful of the mixture on a clean plate (this is to help in easy cooling) & keep the remaining tightly closed(this mixture gets hard very soon, so need to keep it covered all the time).
Apply some ghee to your palms and make small balls of the mixture from the plate.

PS: Once the mixture is cooled, you cannot make the laddoos, so you need to work fast when it is still hot. Be careful not to burn your hands (the mixture at this stage is really really hot). Taking small portions on a plate helps to manage small portions at a time.
If the mixture cools off fast, then, heat it again for sometime till it melts and repeat the procedure.
If you cannot manage to make the laddoos, due to lack of time or patience, just spread the mixture on a plate greased with ghee, then cut them into desired shapes.

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47 thoughts on “Sesame laddoos (Tila laddu)”

  3. musy

    Happy Sankranti to you too, Shilpa. Til is a flavor of the season. Even in Punjabis, til sweets are considered a must for this season. You are really patient to make laddoos with hot mixture, and they really look good!

    Reply
  5. madhavi

    Thanks a lot for this recipe, Shilpa.
    Looking fwd to making it tomm. My son is 17 mths and first time he’ll be tasting tilgul, so wanted to make sure I make ita nd it’s good 🙂
    wish u a happy Sankranti.

    Reply
  6. Purnima

    Shilpa..Happy Sankranti to you too! You hv got a new template! I loved the badami one though 🙂 feels like I hv come to some other blog! Hey thats lovely explanation and stepwise photos as usual …Til gul ghya ani goad goad bola!! Shall surely try these! (Calmanac calendar shows Makar Sankranti and Pongal on 15th Jan..am not sure now!)

    Shilpa: Thats strange..I haven’t changed anything. The template is same. Wondering if something happened while site was going down yesterday night.

    Reply
  7. Asha

    Hi Shilpa, happy Shankrathi to you and family. Ellu Unde looks perfect, I never made this sweet at home.
    Just want to tell you that I have disabled the comment in both blogs temporarily to take it easy for a while, did not make it private though. I will open it after sometime! Detoxing from blog addiction!:D

    Shilpa: Happy Sankranti to you and family Asha. Hope everything is fine. Take it easy on the blog & comments. All the best.

    Reply
  9. Maya

    Yes Shilpa..I tried a little batch of tilgul and it was a total disaster, then aayi said I had done it completely wrong and takes a whole lot more time and patience than I expected..So, just left it at that :)..

    Reply
  13. Rutu

    Happy Sankranti to you too. It seems from this year on, Sankranti will always fall on the 15th at least for the next 100 years! 🙂

    *virtual* til gud ghya goad goad bola 🙂

    Reply
  17. Sonali

    Hi Shilpa,
    Happy Makar-Sankranti!! these Tilguls look delitious….Traditionally I think Tilgul is made of Chikki Gud…thats what they call it i think.

    Reply
  18. RACHANA

    REALLY REALLY PERFECTLY EXPLAINED.
    AND PICTURES R VERY NICE ALSO.
    HEY SHILPA THANKS AND SEND MORE RECP. LIKE THIS PLEASE.
    SHUBH SANKRANTI TO U AND UR FAMUILY.

    Reply
  20. pelicano

    You know what? I complain because I nearly break my teeth on these when I eat them, yet…I eat them, because I love them so much! My grandma would buy a very similar sweet for us when we were young, but instead of balls it was made in small rectangles, so that flavour brings me back! Thanks for posting this!

    Shilpa: Hahaha..thats true. If it is made with molasses(which is usual for these laddus), they become quite chewy and hard. Try with normal jaggery. Spreading the mixture and cutting in squares in much easier, I just wanted to make it the traditional Konkani way, it takes too much time & patience 🙁

    Reply
  21. nita pai

    Hi Shilpa,
    I too made tilguls…the first batch turned out too hard….so I bought tilseeds and chikki-guud from another shop this(2nd) time, and luckily they turned out well!! I however added 2 spoons of ghee to the guud just before mixing in the sesame seeds and 2 spoons of elaichi powder as well.

    So then Tilgull ****** ghya ani God-god bola…******

    Shilpa: Nita I think it was because of jaggery syrup. It needs the perfect consistency to get them right. Molasses works out perfect, but the hard gud is bit more difficult to handle. I too have to practice it before getting it perfectly correct. I am glad second time.

    Reply
  22. Deepa

    Hey Shilpa,
    Hats off to you,these tila laddus require timing and patience and making them into laddus when they are hot..
    good job really!!!

    Reply
  23. Vaishali

    Hi shilpa,

    This is a realy good recipe. I made this Laddu just now. I don`t know wether it will become hard or not.
    But it has very good taste. Thank u so much.

    WISH U HAPPY MAKARSANKRANTI…..

    Reply
  24. Pooja

    hi Shipla,
    Happy Sankranti to you to odear .
    Thanks for sharingthis traditional recipe of tilgud. I feel like grabbing one of it just now, plz allow me :D… It looks so fresh and yummy !
    -Pooja

    Reply
  29. Purnima

    Shilpa..i made these yesterday! I used wrong type of jaggery (chikki goad shd be used for this for ant-saani) , cdn’t bind it to balls, but its tastes heavenly!

    Reply
  32. Sonali

    Hi Shilpa,
    The gud that we get here is sour(aambat).I dont know Why it is so.I tried the ladu as per your recipe and they came out correct but the taste wasn’t that good.Should I use mollasses in the same proportion.Or is there any other way

    Thanks
    Sonali

    Shilpa: Yes, same proportion.

    Reply
  33. kanchan

    Thank you very much for the receipe. Looking forward to make. This year i m going to make on by myself (w/o my mother-in-law’s help). Every year back home we make it in a large quantity. I really enjoy making ladoos. Thank u once again and happy sankranti to u and ur family.

    Reply
  36. swapnil

    hi,thanks for such a nice recepie of til gud ladoo,i have opened so many sites for ladoo but u have explained so nicely that now its very easy to all of us to make it ,u have explained every thing verycarefully,but not like the other s ,thanks once again
    swapnil

    Reply
  37. Sonali

    Hi Shilpa,
    I made the laadoo with mollasses.Andthey were super good.ekdum khamang zaale.Thank you.Also they were chewy not that hard..so the kids loved them.

    sankratichya shubhechhha Tilgul ghya god bola

    Sonali

    Reply
  39. Nita Pai

    Happy Sankrant , Shilpa…!

    I happened to C a recipe on Tilgul on TV yestrdy noon…Thought I will share the tips given :

    a. Wash and Soak the Til overnite . Then drain and spread it on a clean sheet of cloth to dry. Then roast it …
    b. Add a big spoon of ghee to the Chikki-gull first just before melting it ,and before removing it from the fire, add 2 spoons of sugar -to give the laddus a kinda glaze..
    c. Besides groundnuts, one can also add kajubee, putanidaal
    -both ground, not-too coarsely nor fine…

    Hope u will find these tips useful…

    Reply

  42. Pingback: Makar Sankranti: Here’s to longer days « Arun Shanbhag

  44. Umesh

    Hi,
    Sankrati chya hardik shubhechha.
    Mala he sangatana khup anand hot ahe ki, mazya aayila mi tilgulachi recipe gharchya ghari sangitali.
    Thanks to you and thanks to internet.

    Tilgul ghya goad goad bola !!!

    Reply
  46. bindu

    Mine became little smoother, may be I added more water to Jaggery. Then I added dry coconut powder, the smoothness was still there.

    But taste was awesome.

    Thanks a lot.

    Reply

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