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Rave laddu or rava laddoo is one of my favorite sweets from my childhood. Aayi used to make these beautiful yellow colored laddoos with one kishmish(raisin) in each. I absolutely adored these. Though I always ran away when she made these (I was a very lazy kid), I promptly reached to taste them when they were done. Then there were some instances where I offered help and almost burnt my hands by putting them in hot laddoo mixture.

Aayi usually does not add saffron. She adds a pinch of yellow food color to get the bright yellow color to these. Her version is not too oily or too dry (which I observed in the laddoos made by others). Since I didn’t want to use the color, we used saffron. It gave a nice aroma.

Ingredients:
1 cup fine wheat sooji/rava
1 cup sugar
2-3 cloves
Few strands saffron(optional)
1 tea spn raisins
1/2 tea spn cardamom powder
1/2 cup water
Ghee

Method:
Slightly crush cloves and keep aside.
Heat ghee and add cloves, raisins. The cloves and raisins slightly puff up in hot ghee. Add sooji and fry on medium heat mixing continuously till a nice aroma comes out of it. Take out the sooji in a plate.

In the same pan, add water, sugar and heat. Add the saffron strands. Boil it for few minutes.

Switch off the heat and add sooji and mix well. Add cardamom powder and mix well. At this stage, the mixture becomes too watery which is perfectly fine. It gets dry as time passes. Close the lid of the pan and let it sit for about 15-20mins.

When it is dried and can be handled, apply some ghee to hands and make laddoos.

When they are cooled to room temperature, store in air tight containers. Finish them within 1 week.

Makes about 8-10 laddoos

PS: The cardamom powder should not be added till the end. If it is added before, the laddoos loose their aroma.
Some people add milk at the end when the laddoo mix becomes too dry. Avoid this situation as much as possible. This decreases the shelf life.
If the mixture does not get dry after keeping for about 20mins, you can slightly heat it to get it dry.
If the rava is not roasted properly, the laddoos come out to be very sticky. So fry till it turns slightly reddish.