Eggless Rava (sooji) Dates Cake

Ingredients:

• Rava/Sooji - 1 cup (120 gms)
• Seedless Dates - 3/4 cup chopped or blended (100 gms)
• Milk - 1 cup (250 ml)
• Oil - 2 tbsp
• Ghee - 2 tbsp
• Granulated Sugar - 1/4 cup (55 gms)
• Baking powder - 1 tsp
• Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp
• Cashews - 3 to 4 broken into small pieces

Method

• Roast the rava on medium flame for 3-4 mins or till nice aroma comes and keep aside.
• Mix the sugar, cardamom powder, cashews and baking powder well and add it to rava.
• Next add milk,oil, ghee to the rava mixture and mix well. Finally add the chopped/blended dates and mix till all ingredients are mixed well. Keep aside for 10 minutes.
• Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C and bake it for 30-35 minutes. Check it after 25mins, check with a fork if it comes out clean ur cake is done
• Allow it to cool completely before cutting.I was not patient enough and so the pieces werent shaped perfectly :)

My Notes :

• The orginal recipe didnt call for roasting the rava but I tried it and the cake did turn out super good.
• If it is baked for a longer time, the cake becomes hard as the first time I did that mistake and the cake turned out a little harder.
• You can also soak the dates in 1/4 cup milk and blend it to form a paste then add it to rava for uniform mixing.
• If you are using banana then add 1/2 cup sugar instead of 1/4 cup. Mine was fine as dates had the natural sweetness.
• Dont expect the cake to raise, it will not raise much....may be just a thin unnoticeable layer but the cake will turn out light and fluffy.