Rava ladoo

Rava ladoo with is a basic sweet with simple ingredients mostly available in the house. The addition of dessicated coconut or fresh coconut adds a layer of softness and sweetness. Fresh coconut rava ladoo will preferably have to consumed soon as the shelf life is less. With dessicated coconut the shelf life is about a week.. if it remains and your family does not grab it off the plate leaving you none to box up. Today I have made it with dessicated coconut. For some other recipes of rava ladoo you can find links at the end of this recipe.

Every south indian household will make the rava ladoo as part of diwali snacks. Also my mum makes the mix ready to make on demand ..add a little hot ghee and ladoos ready. Today I tried a different style which uses sugar pagh or syrup. This I believe is more Maharashtrian style of making the delicious ladoo. Be it any state related it is quite delicious and turns out soft and easy to make and consume.

Here is the list of ingredients and step by step procedure with tips too.

Ingredients

Rava / semolina - 1cup & 2 tbsp

Dessicated coconut - 1/2 cup

Sugar - 1 cup

Water - 1/2 cup

Edible camphor - a small pinch

Cardamom powder - 1tsp

Ghee 3 tbsp

Cashew nuts 10 small broken

Kismis 10

Method

1) To make the sugar syrup add 1 cup sugar with quartet cup water. See if the whole sugar is melting. If not add the remaining water and first stir to ensure the whole sugar is dissolved. Once dissolved let the syrup boil for about 2 /3 minutes. Make sugar syrup one string consistency.

2) Two ways of checking if one string consistency is reached is take the syrup in a spoon and from the spoon at the tip of your finger take a small drop and try sticking with two fingers. If you can see a small string forming it is ready.

Second method is take the syrup and drop from spoon from a ko height. Observe the last drop . It should fall slowly forming a string.

3) Parallely keep another pan on the gas to start roasting the rava. Add ghee let it become liquid then first fry the cashew and kismis till golden brown. Take it on a plate. Add rava to fry on medium flame for it to become nice and aromatic. When you are half way through add dessicated coconut and continue frying for another few minutes. Add in the fried nuts , flavourings and switch of the flame/ gas.

4) By now the sugar syrup would also be ready on the other gas. Switch off and add this rava mix into it. You need to stir it in well so that all the sugar syrup is absorbed by the rava. It will began to resemble a soft upma.

5) You can leave it for a minute to cool. Do not let it cool completely as it will become a crumbly mix and you will not be able to make ladoos.

6) Once they are easy to handle(warm but not hot on the hand) start taking small quantity and roll into ladoos. Don't worry if you feel it's soft . They will harden once fully cooled.

7) If in case you feel that the mix is too loose you can about a tbsp of roasted rava and mix again. This will be enough. Do not add more.

8) If you feel the mix is too crumbly add 1 tsp of warm water. This will help to get the mix softened and will help in forming the ladoos.

9) Offer it to god then gobble it soft and warm or if you can wait have it after it is cool. Enjoy