Gajar Halwa / Carrot Halwa
Gajar Halwa is such a classic winter Indian sweet specially made during winters months! It is made with carrots, ghee, milk, sugar and cardamom!
Every year when winter season is official, then you would start seeing gajar halwa being prepared at every household. Winter is often wedding season in India, and you see Gajar Halwa served at weddings too. Lol.
What is Gajar Ka Halwa?
Gajar is known as carrots in and Halwa is often a dessert made with different ingredients and some people compare it to be pudding like. However, I don’t like it being called pudding and pudding to me is quite different dish. Halwa is quite popular dessert in many cultures like Turkish, Persian, Pakistani or Indian. Halwa can be made with vegetables like beets, squash or carrots in this case. It can also be made with semolina or farina, whole wheat flour, buckwheat flour, lentils etc.
Carrot Halwa is a little bit time consuming to make especially a big batch of it. I prefer to make it in small batches. That way, it comes out quick and you can enjoy it in smaller quantities. If you happen to double the recipe, it freezes very well. So, feel free to double it.
Halwa has very few ingredients and those are easily available at home.
Carrots, ghee, milk, sugar are the four main ingredients, and it is flavored with cardamom, which is quite essential Indian spice we add in almost every dessert we make. Nuts are also added in carrot halwa but its totally optional.
Some important facts/tips
In India, we get red carrots which are naturally very sweet and very organic than the orange carrots we find here. So, if you can get your hands on some organic carrots that would be great. People make halwa from purple carrots too.
Milk – for best results, that is creamy halwa we always use full-fat whole milk. I would highly recommend it.
Ghee is also important to use here. However, if you do not want to buy ghee. Make some brown butter and use it instead.
Flavor – it is flavored with freshly ground cardamom powder. It’s so good in any Indian desserts. I cannot imagine not using it.
Veganize – Use coconut milk in place of regular milk.
Additional ingredients
Almond meal
Milk Powder – Some people also use milk powder to make it more luxurious but its optional. My mom never added it and so I never add it. But, if you have some on hand and would like to add then use 1/3 -1/2 cup milk powder.
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Some Tips
I prefer hand grated carrots but occasionally I have used food processor. Go for bigger grate. Because no one likes mushy carrots.
While cooking the carrots, its important to keep stirring in between to avoid them form sticking or browning. Slow to medium heat and not leaving it to burn down is important.
The recipe can be easily double or halved, smaller quantities mean it would be less cooking time and doubling the recipe will increase the cooking time.
Sweetness can also be adjusted to personal preference. Sometimes, carrots have sweetness, so you need less sugar, sometimes they are not sweet so you need extra sugar.
Gajar Halwa taste best when served hot or warm. I like to warm it up in microwave. It can be a personal preference. Some people also add ice cream on top of it. I have never tried it with ice cream. But hey, warm halwa topped with cold vanilla ice cream sounds yum.
Storage
You must store the halwa in the fridge and it stays well for about 10 days easily and it can be freeze for longer times up to a month.
Gajar Halwa / Carrot Halwa
Ingredients
- 1 lb carrots approximately 4-5 medium sized, grated
- 3 tbsp ghee
- 2 cups milk
- 1 – 1½ cup sugar depending your preference for sweetness
- ½ cup almond meal
- 1 tsp cardamom powder
- 2 tbsp raisin and nuts
Instructions
- Rinse, peel the carrots, take the ends out. Using a grater or food processor, grate carrots and leave it aside.
- In a deep pot or pan on medium heat, add ghee and roast nuts in ghee. Remove the nuts from ghee and add grated carrots in the ghee. After 10 minutes the carrots would have reduced a bit, make sure to stir in between to avoid sticking and at this point add milk. Stir to combine.
- Let the mixture simmer until it reduces and cooks the carrots completely. Keep stirring every few minutes to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan. Do not increase the heat to speed up the process. This is where it gets little labor intensive.
- Your mixture might look curdled, it’s totally normal. Once the milk evaporates completely, add in sugar. Once you add sugar it will start releasing water and cook down the sugar also until all the water evaporates from the sugar. All this while, you do want to keep stirring every few minutes.
- If you plan to add milk powder and almond meal, add it currently. Stir to mix.
- Add freshly crushed cardamom powder. Once it has thickened to a good consistency, garnish it with nuts and it is ready to be served.
Happy New Year! Hope you all have a wonderful and safe 2022!