The quarantine life has pushed a lot of people to indulge into cooking and baking. It has not only left people to make the traditional recipes but has also resulted in everyone trying to give a personal touch to the classics. In the period of various challenges like Dalgona coffees trending on Instagram, a few are also shifting their focus into making traditional Indian sweets at home. Remember those days of childhood, where our grandmothers used to handcraft coconut ladoos at home, which was then distributed amongst everybody during the festive season?
Do you also miss that flavor in your palette, from your favorite sweet shop but too scared to go out and buy them during this festive season? Want to make them at home in order to make the festivals extra sweet for your loved ones? Follow the newest festive trend of “adding sweetness to your life”.
While you’re at it, do check out 5 mistakes that you should not be made while making the very loved and decadent coconut ladoos.
THE 5 MISTAKES YOU SHOULD AVOID WHILE MAKING COCONUT LADOOS
1. Mixing sugar and milk before adding it to toasted desiccated coconut or fresh coconut
One of the most common mistakes people make is by mixing sugar and milk together before adding it to make a mixture of coconut ladoos. Sugar while melting reaches a very high temperature compared to milk, which causes the milk to split and curdle. One should always remember to first let the milk cook with the coconut in order to reach a temperature together. One should always add the sugar after the milk reaches a rolling boil. This helps in the temperature of milk and sugar to rise together and eliminates the chance of milk to curdle.
2. Adding powdered sugar in place of granulated sugar
Due to a thinner consistency powdered sugar tends to caramelize faster than grained sugar which is also a leading cause of the mixture to burn. Adding granulated sugar would give the mixture enough time to properly cook in milk till it dries because it would take much more time to melt than powdered sugar.
3. Adding un-roasted dry fruits and flavoring spices
Adding dry fruits and spices without roasting only leads to the dry fruits getting soggy and the flavors not being up to the mark. Roasting is a great method to bring out the aroma in the spices and a little oil of the dry fruits which are one of the important aspects of any Indian sweets specially a coconut ladoo.
4. Not adding enough moisture
Usually one tends to either reduce the quantity of milk or add no milk to the mixture at all which leads to the mixture become really hard after shaping it and the ladoos tend to get extremely hard which does not give a good mouth feel.
5. Consistency of the mixture
One should always keep in mind that the mixture of coconut ladoo should not be extremely wet or extremely dry before you start shaping them. If the mixture is extremely wet it will be very difficult to shape them even after the mixture cools down. If the mixture is extremely dry the ladoo tends to crumble and become hard. The consistency of the mixture should be sticky before it is put it aside to cool down.
“Make your festive season safe and happy by trying to make these decadent coconut ladoos at home and brighten this season for your loved ones in the middle of this pandemic situation”
This was a useful article.