Semolina Coconut Laddu

Rava coconut Laddu in Marathi

Yield: 22 to 24 medium laddus
Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:
2 cup Rava (Fine)
1 cup scraped fresh coconut
1 and 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water
3 to 4 tbsp pure ghee
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
25 Golden raisins

Method:
1) Dry roast rava over medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Stir continuously to prevent rava from burning. [Note - Do not roast too much until color changes as we are going to roast it again]
2) Transfer roasted rava to a big thali (plate). Add fresh coconut and mix. Let rava soak the moisture from coconut for 10 minutes.
3) Heat a pan. Add ghee and wait until it melts. Add rava-coconut mixture and roast for 8 to 10 minutes over medium-high heat. Stir continuously. After few minutes you will sense nice aroma of ghee and roasted rava. Roast until color changes very slightly.Transfer roasted rava to a big thali.
4) Now, prepare one string consistency sugar syrup. For that, mix sugar and water to a medium saucepan. Bring it to a boil. Stir occasionally. To check one string consistency, dip a spoon in syrup, touch carefully with your index finger. Press your index finger against your thumb.When finger and thumb pull apart, a thin string should form between them [the string will be for fraction of a second]. OR the easy way is, once syrup starts boiling, boil for 3 to 4 minutes and turn off the heat.
5) Immediately, pour the syrup on roasted rava. Mix nicely. Consistency of the mixture will be very loose. However it will thicken after sometime. Add cardamom powder. Mix this mixture occasionally.
Once mixture is thick enough to form a ball, make laddus. Stick one golden raisin on each laddu.

Tips:
1) The shelf life of laddus are no more than 7-8 days due to fresh coconut. If the weather is hot and humid it might be 3 to 4 days.
2) Usually, Rava gets in 3 qualities, Coarse, fine and superfine. For above recipe, use fine quality rava. Coarse rava will give grainy texture. Superfine rava almost looks like white flour, so it is not suitable for this recipe.
3) If the laddu mixture becomes dry, that means sugar syrup has got two or three string consistency. In that case, boil 1/2 cup water plus 3 tbsp sugar. Boil for 3 to 4 minutes and pour it on the mixture. Mix and make laddus after couple of hours.
4) Sliced dry fruits can be added according to your preference.
5) Use only white part of coconut and avoid black particles from shell.