Thinai laddu, also known as Thinai urundai in Tamil is a traditional prasadam made using foxtail millet flour, honey and ghee. It is quick to prepare as well as Thinai is considered Lord Murugan's favorite grain.
This is a nutritious, healthy snack with no refined sugar and foxtail millet flour. You can make it for festivals worshiping lord Murugan like Thaipusam (Thai Poosam) or Karthigai.
Check out my easy Karthigai pori recipe and Thirupagam recipe in this website.
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About Thinai Laddu
This is one of those rare festival recipes that is traditional and nutritious, no refined sugar, no complicated steps and minimal ingredients.
Why Thinai Laddu is special?
- Made with foxtail millet, one of the oldest native grains of India
- Sweetened naturally
- Traditionally offered during Murugan festivals
- No frying, no sugar syrup, no elaborate preparation
- Suitable as prasadam and everyday healthy snack.
I learnt this recipe from the old cook book I have. The author named it 'Thinai maa' which means thinai maavu in Tamil.
It is also widely known as 'Thenum thinai maavum' which means honey with foxtail millet flour.
Thinai laddu Ingredients
Here are the ingredients needed to make Thinai maavu laddu.
- Thinai flour - Thinai maavu - Readymade flour available in shops are very handy for this preparation
- Honey - Use good quality pure ones, for health benefits
- Ghee - For flavour and binding
- Cardamom - Adds a warm flavour
See recipe card for exact quantities.
Step by step images
1. Measure thinai maavu firstly and start dry roasting it.
2. Then, at one stage steam will start wafting. Reduce the flame to medium.
3. Roast for 5 minutes furthermore. Keep stirring as it will get burnt easily towards end. Once you see the flour turning reddish while stirring, toss well or stir well to ensure even cooking.
Make sure to roast the flour thoroughly, as this is the only way we are cooking it.
4. Immediately, transfer to a bowl for cooling down.
It is very important to cool down completely as we should not add honey to hot items.
5. Once completely cooled, add ghee, crushed cardamom to it.
6. Then add honey, one tablespoon at a time and mix thoroughly. After 3 tablespoon, if needed add fourth.
7. Eventually it should hold it's shape when you make laddu and the sweetness also will be perfect.
8. Shape laddu and repeat to finish the entire thinai mavu.
If it doesn't hold shape, add little more honey and mix thoroughly again. Offer as prasadam or as a healthy snack.
Substitutions
Here are some substitutions for the ingredients if you are looking for.
- Honey - instead you can use powdered jaggery or sugar.
- Vegan - Looking for vegan options? Skip honey and ghee. Just roast the flour, mix jaggery or sugar and add some fresh grated coconut. No need to shape to ladoo. You can keep as such and consume within a day.
For longer shelf life, you can roast the coconut and mix.
Variations
How can thinai laddu recipe adjusted to suit your taste or availability?
- Add ghee fried nuts before shaping the laddu.
- No shaping - If you are time pressed, you can just mix and offer to God/ serve as snack.
- Thinai Maavilakku - You can prepare maavilakku, instead of shaping to thinai urundai. Please see my maavilakku recipe for idea. Just replace rice flour with thinai flour.
Storage
It stays good for 10 days at room temperature. Keeping inside fridge might affect the texture.
Top tip
Never add honey to hot items as it will affect the texture as well as spoils the goodness. Using different brands might give slight quantity difference. Hence I have given 3-4 tablespoons.
How to make Thinai mavu at home?
You get thinai flour at shops ready made these days for this foxtail millet laddu. Actually we get all the millets in powder form.
But you can also prepare from thinai arisi (Foxtail millet).
It is just like prepare homemade rice flour.
- Firstly wash the millet well. Use a large metal strainer for water to drain easily.
- After that, spread in a clean cloth and dry in shade for a day.
- Finally, grind it in mixie to a fine powder. If you want you can sieve.
- Use in the recipe as needed.
- Alternately, in a pan you can also dry roast until golden in low flame and then powder. You need not roast mavu.
- Also you can grind in mill if you are preparing in bulk.
Recipe card
Thinai Laddu Recipe | Thinai Maavu Laddu
Ingredients
- 1 cup Thinai maavu Foxtail millet flour
- 3 - 4 tablespoon Honey
- 2 teaspoon Ghee
- 1 Cardamom crushed
Instructions
- Measure thinai maavu firstly and start dry roasting it.
- Then, at one stage steam will start wafting. Reduce the flame to medium.
- Roast for 5 minutes furthermore. Keep stirring as it will get burnt easily towards end.
- Make sure to roast the flour thoroughly, as this is the only way we are cooking it.
- Once you see the flour turning reddish while stirring, toss well or stir well to ensure even cooking.
- Immediately, transfer to a bowl for cooling down.
- It is very important to cool down the flour completely as we should not add honey to hot flour.
- Once completely cooled, add ghee, crushed cardamom to the flour.
- Then add honey, one tablespoon at a time and mix thoroughly. After 3 tablespoon, if needed add fourth.
- Eventually it should hold it's shape when you make laddu and the sweetness also will be perfect.
- Shape laddu and repeat to finish the entire thinai mavu.
Video
Notes
- Never add honey to hot items as it will affect the texture as well as spoils the goodness of honey's property.
- I used Organic raw honey. Using different brands might give slight quantity difference. Hence I have given 3-4 tablespoons.
- It had a very very mild bitter after taste probably the usual millet's nature or suspect the quality of flour I bought. So add sweetness accordingly to balance it.
- Adding too much honey will turn the laddu shiny.
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