Wanna take an Indian Cooking Challenge? Rava Laddoo

Rava Ladoo is something I learned after coming to US. My mom was not huge fan of it neither was my dad. My brother and I got to eat it once or twice a year when my grandma or one of my aunt would make for Diwali. Somehow I knew the proportions so tried and it came out extremely good "for the first try ;)". After making it successfully once, now I make it almost every year for Diwali for Laxmipujan prasad. Last year I wanted to make it vegan, so I tried without ghee added more fresh coconut to give it extra rich taste. Result was amazing. I will post that recipe soon.

But today its not about my recipe ;) but about Indian Cooking Challenge. A brainchild of Srivalli of Cooking 4 All Seasons and Spice Your Life. You can read all about the challenge and the rules here - http://spicingyourlife.blogspot.com/search/label/Indian%20Cooking%20Challenge

As a starter, Srivalli posted her own recipe for rava laddoo. It was easy to follow as it has no step to make syrup, no kidding! I must have read the instructions almost 4-5 times just to make sure there is no syrup. My main concern was about dairy as I want to keep my blog more vegan although I do post non-vegan recipes as I rarely eat them. But this time I decided to follow the recipe to the dot with number of nuts and raisins and of course ghee and milk. As I did not change anything in the recipe, so I will just copy that from the original post.

one closeup


Ingredients Needed:
Makes - 10 Laddoos of normal size Rava / Semolina - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Ghee - 25 gms
Milk - 25 ml Cardamom powder - a pinch
Cashew nuts - 10 whole nuts
Raisins - 10 nos
Grated fresh coconut - 25 gms Method to prepare:

Heat 2 tsp of ghee in a kadai. Once the ghee is hot enough, simmer the flame and roast cashew nuts and raisins. Once the raisins balloon up, remove. Then roast the grated coconut. Remove once done. Keep all these aside. Add the remaining ghee and roast the Rava till its well roasted and aroma starts coming out. In a bowl, take all the roasted Rava, Nuts, Coconut and add the Cardamom powder. Then add the sugar. Mix well. Then slowly add the warm milk into the bowl. Check if you are able to gather as balls. When you find that milk added is enough to get you laddos, transfer it back to the kadai and cook in sim for 2 mins. Mix well and then cover it and let it rest for 2 mins. Then immediately make balls or laddoo .


Some things I learned:

1. I should have used fine semolina instead of the one meant for upama.
2. I can easily make this without milk and ghee and adding 25 gm more fresh coconut.
3. Sugar we get in US is perfect for this kind of laddoo but not sure if 25ml milk is enough for the sugar we get in India.
4. I do not have measuring scale so I eyeballed amount of ghee and coconut.
   
5. Last 2 minutes on the simmer might not be necessary of you use fine sugar and let the mixture sit for 10 minutes.
   

Verdict:
Rava Laddoo

Twelve golf ball sized rava laddoos.