Rava Ladoo

  Rava ladoo or sooji (semolina) ka ladoo is one of the easiest and quickest sweets to make for any occasion.You can find this ladoo in many sweet shops in South India, but you can seldom make out rava in it.... so fine is its texture, I sometimes feel they actually grind the rava before using it. My husband refers to the store bought version of this ladoo as 'Concrete'.....so hard it is! As a kid, I have had the not so good fortune of having tasted this ladoo made in numerous friends home on Diwali day...and they were very hard to bite into, so much so, we tried to avoid eating these ladoos outside. Well, the ones my mother made would melt in the mouth. Don't really know where she got the recipe from, but here it is....

Rava Ladoos

Ingredients:

Rava (Semolina) - 1 cup (dry roasted)

Sugar - 1 cup

Coconut - 1 cup (grated)

Cardamom - 2 pods (finely ground)

Milk - few tablespoons (tbsps)

Cashew nuts - 1 tbsp (broken in small pieces)

Raisins - 1 tbsp

Ghee - 1 and 1/2 tbsp

Method:

1) Preheat a kadai (wok) or saucepan and then dry roast the rava till the raw smell disappears. Do this on low heat so as not to burn the rava. Once done, remove and cool the rava on a plate. Use upma rava for this as it is easier to make ladoos with it.

2) Place the cooled rava in a large vessel and add the sugar, grated fresh coconut and ground cardamom. Mix all the ingredients nicely. I prefer fresh coconut as it is tastier than the dried version. Either grate a fresh coconut or buy the already grated fresh coconut from the freezer section in the Indian store. You can also halve the amount of coconut, if you don't like your ladoos to contain too much of it. I usually use just 1/2 cup these days as my hubby is not a great fan of coconut.Do remember not to pack the coconut in the cup while measuring, else you may end up with coconut ladoos instead ;)

3)Now heat a small pan and place the ghee together with the broken cashews and raisins.Fry them on low heat stirring continuously till the raisins puff up and the cashews turn a golden brown. Be careful so as not to burn them. Add these to the rava, coconut mixture and mix well. 

4)Next sprinkle few tablespoons of cooled, boiled milk to the mixture,so as to bind it and make ladoos.Immediately mix well,so that the entire rava is coated with milk.I prefer to microwave the milk first, cool it and then use it to avoid the raw smell of milk. But there have also been days when I have used cold milk directly from the fridge, without bothering to boil it. Didn't make much of a difference in taste though or even smell for that matter. A friend once made these ladoos with evaporated milk and they came out quite tasty. She however did not fry the raisins in ghee, but added them as is.Do try it and let me know :)

5) You should now have a wet, sand like consistency of a mixture.Take a handful of the mixture and form small or medium sized ladoos. If you are unable to shape them into ladoos, sprinkle more cold milk and mix again until you get a consistency that can be shaped into a round ladoo. Make ladoos and store them in an airtight container in the fridge, especially in hot summers. They will go bad if left out as they contain fresh coconut. In winters you can keep them outside for a day or two, then refrigerate.These ladoos should stay good upto a week if you can resist eating them, that is!

Note: This recipe will make about 30 small sized ladoos.