Horlicks Rava laddu

 
My daughter expects a chocolate cake and mysore pak which she calls as yellow burfi on her birthdays. It has become a sort of tradition in our home that those two items are a part of her birthday celebrations. She celebrated her birthday two days ago and as usual her birthday cake was a chocolate based one. She didn't get to pick her cake this time around and so, thankfully we didn't have to witness a riot of colors. Instead her dad brought a cake decorated with dainty, pink roses which was beautiful.

For a change, instead of Mysore pak, I decided to go with these rava laddu with a twist that I happened to see on a cook show. The chef had sneaked in a dose of horlicks to the rava laddu preparation to make it nutritious and kid friendly. For those uninitiated, horlicks is a nutritional malted milk drink.  I had a bottle of horlicks lying around for months now that was bought on my daughter's whimsy,  which she refused to drink later. These laddus seemed to be a great way to use up some of that horlicks. Don't go overboard while using horlicks in the recipe as it's flavor may get dominant. My daughter enjoyed these laddus better than drinking horlicks. She very rarely eats sweets and this must be her first time tasting laddus. A surprising feat considering that I have made loads of laddus in the past one and half decade and she hadn't bothered even to look at them so far.

Ingredients: (Yield 20 laddus)
2 tbsp. ghee
2 tbsp. raisins
1 cup semolina
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup Horlicks powder
1/4 cup cashew powder
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
Ghee / Milk as needed to shape laddus

Method:
* Toast raisins in ghee, in a saute pan until plump. Transfer them to a wide plate using a slotted spoon.
* Next add semolina to the same ghee in the pan. Continuously stirring, toast it on medium flame  until it starts to change the color, 4 to 5 minutes. Turn off the stove and transfer the semolina to the wide plate (with raisins) to cool.
* When semolina is no longer warm to touch, add sugar, horlicks, cashew powder and cardamom to the semolina plate. Mix well to combine.
* Next add ghee or milk in tbsp. increments to the mixture until it can hold shape when fisted. (About 4 to 6 tbsp. liquid may be needed.) Shape lime sized balls out of the mixture.
* The laddus can be stored in a covered container and can be left on the counter if they are made with ghee since they stay good for few days. However if  not planning to finish them sooner, they can be refrigerated. Where as if milk was used to shape laddus, they need to be refrigerated since they don't store well beyond a day.

This is going to be a part of Blogging marathon #64 under 'Bookmarked Recipes' and check here to find out what other marathoners are cooking today.

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