Sometimes you just need to take something bad for you and make it even worse in the best way possible. When I was in Goa recently, the restaurant at the Varanda do Mar Hotel in Panaji served this dessert and it was so delicious that I had to try to figure out how to recreate the recipe.

If you’re not familiar with ladoo, it’s a traditional round, orange Indian sweet made from boondi, chickpea flour batter that has been fried into teeny-tiny pellets and then formed into balls and soaked in syrup. You can find stuff called boondi ladoo, made from larger pellets. Motichoor ladoo refers to the type made from the finest pellets, which is what I’m using here.

Making ladoo from scratch is a process unto itself and requires a special ladle to create the boondi pellets. I’m willing to skip this step since our kitchen storage is already at a premium, but this looks like a good recipe for anyone curious.

For this experiment, I used Haldiram’s frozen motichoor ladoo. It comes 12 to a package and thaws easily. The ladoo are smaller than what you can typically find fresh, but they can be layered in a parfait glass easily enough. If you prefer to get a larger ball or a wider layer, these can probably be mashed together in whichever shape you want.

My first attempt was with the parfait glasses in the photo directly above. I borrowed a bit from this recipe with rasgulla to make a layered dessert, though what I was really trying to replicate was the cream sauce. This turned out much runnier than I was hoping for. It still tasted amazing in the parfait desserts, and got rave reviews from my friends, so it’s a good option if you want to whip up something quick.

You can also use champaign flutes, which hold about 3 of the small ladoos, and aren’t quite as much of a commitment if you’ve already had a big Indian dinner.

The key to get the sauce to the restaurant quality is to let the mix sit overnight and then cook it down the next day. This rabdi cream recipe gave some inspiration and might be fun to try separately for another Indian dessert. I tried this technique with the sauce leftover from the parfaits and the last unclaimed ladoo in the package, and it was exactly what I was hoping for.

To serve 3-4:

Ladoo (package of 12)
1/2 c. sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c. evaporated milk
1/2 c. whole milk (or 1/4 c. soy and 1/4 c. heavy cream if you want to go quatro leches)
1/2 tsp. saffron threads plus a few more for garnish
Rose petals or other edible flower petals for garnish
Sliced pistachios for garnish

Mix the milks and stir until you have an even consistency. Add the half teaspoon of saffron threads. Ideally, refrigerate overnight or for a few hours. You can use it right away if you’re making parfaits, but you’ll get more color if you wait.

If you’re making parfait: Add one ladoo into a parfait glass or champaign flute. Cover with the tres leches, then add another ladoo, and repeat until the glass is reasonably full but not overflowing. Garnish with saffron, rose petals, and/or pistachios.

If you’re making the sauce to serve in a bowl: Move the tres leches to a saucepan and simmer on low heat, stirring constantly to keep it from burning. Cook it down to half or a third of its original volume.

Pour into bowls. Add one ladoo to each bowl and garnish with saffron, rose petals, and/or pistachios. Serve while it’s still warm.