Ladoos–Cashew Cacao

Ladoos are round-shaped sweets in India. This recipe is filled with ingredients that build ojas—vitality, immunity, resilience—that supports and stabilizes the body and mind. The spices support digestion of the heavier ojas-building ingredients. Ladoos are great to provide energy and to help balance vata for pregnancy, postpartum, kids, athletes, and travel. These are not ideal for those with high kapha, low agni, or high ama.

This version is a personal favorite of my daughter, Juno! This was adapted from recipes by Kaya Mindlin.

Grind in a food processor to a dry sand consistency:

• 1 cup raw cashews

• 1 cup toasted and cooled rolled oats (toasted on a cookie sheet in the oven or toaster oven, or in an iron skillet on the stove top, until slightly browned/aromatic). Toasting makes oats lighter and easier to digest

• 1 tsp of cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp of cardamom

• 1.5 tablespoons cacao powder

• 1/8 tsp of rock salt (e.g. Himalayan pink salt)

Add in and process:

• 1 tablespoon of coconut oil or ghee

• 9-14 fresh pitted & chopped medjool dates (start with 9 and grind really well into the mixture before adding 1 at a time as needed until consistency is right)

When this mixture forms a dough that starts to stick together in big clumps in the food processor, you have the right consistency. You want it to be a dough that can shape into balls but isn't overly sticky.

Wash hands thoroughly, then form dough into round balls, and store covered in fridge for up to a week. They'll be quite soft at first until they firm up a bit in the fridge.

Tips:

• You can play with swapping/adding ingredients, e.g. shredded coconut, rose water, almonds, no oats, no cacao, ginger, etc.

• One of my favorite places to get spices is Burlap & Barrel. I used their Royal Cinnamon and Cloud Forest Cardamom in the batch pictured here.

• You can use store-bought ghee or make your own. See my ghee recipe for more info.