Zucchini Halwa Cake
Zucchini Halwa Cake recipe lives up to the name, it has the most delicious flavor of ghee, cardamom, and creaminess from milk. Easy to make and full of fresh zucchini. Its soft and perfect teatime snack or top it off with crème fraiche or whipped cream to make it a dessert worthy cake.
It’s perfect way to use up all the zucchini growing in your gardens. I wish I grew zucchini. If I had green thumb, I would be harvesting zucchini and make this cake/bread so often.
What is Halwa?
So, halwa is an Indian dessert made with so many variations and different ingredients. Some halwa are made with semolina, or whole wheat flour. Some with carrots or squash. I shared the zucchini halwa recipe few days ago. Check it out. Its anyways the base of this recipe.
You have heard about Zucchini bread, try this zucchini halwa bread. It came out so delicious. There are few new ingredients that regular zucchini bread does not have in them. They are ghee, milk and cardamom. Once you try this recipe you will love it. I have explained everything thoroughly about halwa in the previous post.
How to prepare and ingredients?
The bread recipe is just like any other quick breads. Once you make the halwa, let it cool down completely and then incorporate it in the bread batter. Other than the halwa part, overall recipe is one bowl recipe. You don’t need too much equipment.
The recipe has dry ingredients like flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugar. The wet ingredients are oil, egg, and milk as part of the halwa. We have spiced it with cardamom. I have added some nuts inside the cake and garnished it also on top. I love the addition of sultanas and nuts, because halwa also has same garnish.
The cake is soft and delicious as it is, but we love crème fraiche and I accidentally had some at home. So, I have used it. I think you can leave it out or use mascarpone cheese, whipped cream, or melt some white chocolate on top, or just do sugar glaze. I could not stop eating the cake itself, no kidding. Then, I loved it more with the crème fraiche too. I would suggest that if you want to serve it as a snack cake with coffee, then just keep it simple or sugar glaze it.
But, if you are celebrating something or making it for festivities hint Rakshabandhan is coming up, then go all out. But do not frost it too much. It will be overpowering the cake. Do just enough to cover the cake. If you frost it, then add the ghee roasted nuts. So delicious. I made it extra special by adding the silver leaf and sprinkled some rose petals. There you have an elegant looking easy not so perfect looking cake ready. Plain cake can be served with some vanilla ice cream too.
How to Store the leftover cake
Like any other quick breads, this can be stored in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.
You can freeze the loaf as well, tightly wrapped up in plastic wrap or foil. Just add the crème whenever you are ready to serve.
Zucchini Halwa Cake – quick bread
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup sugar halwa also has sugar
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup neutral oil
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/4 cup zucchini halwa
- 1/4 cup mix nuts and raisins
- 1/4 cup crème fraiche or mascarpone cheese optional
Instructions
- Pre heat oven to 350 F.
- Line a loaf pan with parchment paper and grease it well with butter or ghee.
- In a mixing bowl, add oil, sugar and 1 egg, stir it well using a whisk. You can also use kitchen aid mixer with paddle attachment and make the batter.
- Add in the dry ingredients – flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cardamom powder.
- Add in the prepared halwa and finely chopped nuts. Reserve some nuts for the topping.
- Pour the prepared batter in the loaf pan and bake it for 40-45 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean and the top of the cake looks golden.
- Once the cake comes out of the oven, let it cool for few minutes in the pan and then transfer it to a cooling rack. Cool it completely before slicing it.
- If you plan for the light frosting – Whisk ¼ cup of crème fraiche or any other thing you are using, spread it with the help of a cake spatula and garnish it with ghee roasted nuts, silver leaf, rose petals etc.
- Serve it at room temperature for best texture.
Notes
- The recipe should have only 1 cup sugar, so if you add half of it in the halwa then, only add half in the bread/cake recipe. If you add extra, it would be too sweet.
- Make sure the halwa is completely cooled down or at warm temperature when you add it to the batter.
- The topping/frosting is optional.
- Do not skip on the ghee roasted nuts and raisins.
- Substitute egg with yogurt or condensed milk.
Zucchini Halwa
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp ghee
- 3-4 tbsp cashews, sultanas or raisins, almond, pistachios
- 1 ½ -2 cups Zucchini shredded with skin
- 1 cup Whole milk
- 1/3 – 1/2 cup Sugar
- ½ tsp cardamom powder
- ¼ cup milk powder
- Optional – rose petals, saffron, silver leaf
Instructions
- Wash the zucchini skin very well with water. Grate Zucchini with skin on using a grater or you can also use food processor. Hand grated is better for texture. Use larger holes of the grater.
- Heat up ghee in a heavy bottom pan on medium temperature. Once the ghee is slightly hot quickly stir the dry fruits and remove them. You just want to get them to brown a little bit. Do not burn them. Leave them aside.
- In same ghee, add grated Zucchini and keep stirring until all the moisture has evaporated or gone from the zucchini. Once the moisture is gone, add the milk and keep cooking until the mix is thickened and again the mixture has become dry. Keep stirring in between, do no leave it unattended.
- Once the milk has reduced, add in the sugar, cardamom powder and milk powder again keep stirring. Sugar will release some water, so it needs to be cooked further until the mixture is thickened and starts leaving the sides of the pan. You will also observe the ghee being released on the sides of the pan.
- You can keep the consistency to your liking if there is not too much water and sugar has dissolved completely.
- Mix in the cardamom powder, and ghee roasted nuts. Leave some nuts to garnish if you like.
- Optionally you can garnish the halwa with some dried rose petals, gold or silver leaf.
- Serve it warm or cold. It tastes good both ways. I love it warm.
Notes
- The amount of sweetness can be adjusted. Taste it once sugar has dissolved, to add more sugar.
- It stays well in the fridge for few days and can easily be frozen few a month.
- It can be served either warm or cold. If you want to warm it, microwave it for few seconds. It will release some ghee when you warm it up.
