Cocont Barfi Ladoo | Easy Diwali Recipe

Happy Diwali wishes to all of you readers of Food over IP :-). I love diwali, and for most of us it is the most favorite festival - full of life, lights and colors, not to mention the yummy sweets, snacks and super shopping.

I wanted to post here much earlier, but managed to squeeze some time only yesterday to make Diwali palakaram [food] which started off with Coconut barfi. This Diwali my palakaram set consists of coconut barfi, rasagollas, tomato pickle, Masal Paniyaram and Paal Paniyaram. All the posts will appear here as soon as I finish making them ;). So what sweets and snacks do you plan to make this Diwali? 

I am not fond of heavy coconut based sweets, but S loves coconut barfi when warm and I also had to finish the grated coconut from Ayudha pooja festival that has been sitting in my freezer for a while now, so decided to go ahead and make coconut barfi for Diwali. S had this brilliant idea of using mini muffin pan to set the coconut barfi which dint work :|, so we had remove it from there and reset it the usual way on a plate. While doing that, I completely forgot about greasing the plate and hence couldn't take out the pieces in the desired square shape. So I removed all of them again and made them into a ladoo shape and hence the name coconut barfi ladoo :).

Btw which click looks better the first one or second? I clicked the one above and S the one below, but I like his better and vice versa ;)

Ingredients

Serves - Makes - 12 pieces
Prep Time - 15 min
Cook time - 15 min

Grated Coconut - 1 1/3 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Cardamom powder - 1/2 Tsp
Cashew nuts - 10 pieces, broken
Water - 1/4 cup
Ghee - 2 Tsp little for greasing

How do you do it

1. Give the grated coconut a couple of pulses in your mixie/food processor to get a much finer texture of the coconut and keep aside. Grease a plate with little ghee , to which you will transfer the barfi mix later.

2. Heat 1 Tsp ghee in a wide bottom pan, and roast the cashews to a golden brown and transfer to a bowl.

3. In the same pan as above, add the sugar and water and let them boil, the sugar will dissolve and wil froth up. At about 6-7 min, you will get a single string consistency of the sugar syrup, this is when you add the coconut.

4. Mix the coconut well and keep stirring. After a few minutes it will bubble at the sides, then add a tsp ghee , cashews and cardamom powder and mix well.

5. Keep mixing, after 5-6 minutes, the mixture will form a lump mass at the center of the pan, and start to leave the sides of the pan easily. Switch off flame and transfer immediately to the greased plate. Smooth the top with a spatula and let it set. You are now free to have a few spoons full of this yummy coconut mix while warm which taste absolutely heavenly :)

6. After 15 minutes, while its a little warm, mark the pieces on barfi and cool it. Once completely cooled, return to fridge. After a couple of hours, remove the marked pieces and store in air-tight container. Keeps well for a week.

Notes

1. The consistency at which you switch off flame is very important, a minute later - the barfis will be hard, a minute sooner - they will not set well.

2. Mark pieces when warm, otherwise it will be difficult to do it later once it sets completely.