Ellu Urundai/Black Sesame Seed Balls

Ellu Urundai is a sweet traditionally made on vinayakar chathurthi to offer to lord Ganesha. It’s often made with black sesame seeds and they taste and smell great. Usually the toasted sesame seeds are added to jiggery syrup and are made into balls.
These balls are a little hard to bite and at times when the sugar syrup consistency is a little over what you want the balls may really test your dental strength. But my Amma follows a different recipe which gives soft ellu urundai. My whole family follows the same recipe. So here it is.

Ingredients:

Black sesame seeds- 1 cup

Jaggery/Gur/vellam-1&1/2 cup

How it Happened:

1. Place the clean (read notes) sesame seeds in a pan and dry roast them until they start popping. When they start popping simmer the flame and keep roasting until they give out the smell. Then switch off the flame, immediately transfer them to a plate and allow them to cool down.

2. Once when the sesame seeds are cooled, transfer them to a blender jar and grind them for a minute. By now the sesame seeds must have powdered.

3. Add about a handful of powdered jaggery along with sesame seeds and blitz them. Similarly keep adding the jaggery until you are able to form a ball with it. For me it took about 1 and ¼ cup of jaggery.

4. Once when the sesame seeds and jaggery mixture is able to hold the shape, take it from the blender head and make ellu urundai. The quantity yields about 15 -20 medium sized balls.

Notes:

*2 days prior to making the ellu urundai, wash the ellu/sesame seeds well in running water. Completely drain the water and spread them in a clean cloth or a plate and dry them under the sunlight for a day or two. Then store them in a dry, clean canister until use.

* The sesame seeds tend to get burnt easily, so keep turning them while roasting and transfer them to a cool plate even when the flame is switched off as the heat in the pan may burn them.

* I use urundai vellam. What i do is, i simply scrap them with an old bread knife or hit them with a mortar and break them into tiny pieces. Finally i put them in a ziplock pouch and roll over with a rolling pin to ensure that they are powdered. You can also use the readily powdered Punjabi gur available in packets. These Punjabi gur gives a better golden colour.

* Make sure the mixer jar is dry otherwise the ellu urundai may get spoilt very soon.

*Do not add all the jaggery at once add them little by little as you blitz them else the mixture may become too soft to hold a ball.

* Making urundai/balls gets really messy as the mixture is really sticky so its always wise to use the paper gloves.

* The ellu urundai keep well for 1 week to 10 days at room temperature if properly stored.