Halva is the generic term for flour and/or butter and nuts based dense sweets in various world cuisines including Ottoman cuisine. This one is called royal halva and it is made of butter, wheat flour, caster/icing sugar and ground nuts (almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts). It obviously tastes somewhat like shortbread cookies, as they both contain the same ingredients, but method of preparation is what separates the two.
Ingredients (makes around 25-30 pieces of halva):
500 g (4 cups) of plain sifted white flour
250 g butter, at room temperature
200 g (1 cup) of caster/superfine sugar
200 g (1 cup) finely ground unsalted fresh almonds (or hazelnuts)- soak in hot water and peel before grinding
Roast flour in a non-stick pan on the stove-top on low heat. Stir constantly with a wooden spatula to avoid uneven browning. Once all the flour turns into a slightly yellowish ivory color remove the pan from the heat. Be careful not to burn or brown it. There shouldn’t be any floury smell left either. Keep stirring for around 5-6 minutes after removing from the heat. When it cools off a bit, add in the sugar, butter and ground almonds. Knead until sticky and even for around 4-5 minutes. Wear plastic gloves if it’s still too hot. Transfer halva mixture into a 2-3cm-deep and 30-35 cm wide non-stick tray. Spread the halva evenly and press hard with your fingers until nice and smooth. This step is the tricky part, the denser the better. Slice it into 3-4 cm pieces. Diagonal slices or squares look fine. Leave it on the kitchen counter for about 10 minutes, cover and put into the refrigerator. Serve the next day or at least 5-6 hours later, topped with unpeeled almonds.
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This looks much closer to the Halva recipe that is found in the size of a candy bar. It’s getting harder and harder to find them. My problem is the sugar, so I’m going to try Xylitol in these. Most of the recipes say to make a sugar syrup, but I don’t see that in yours; you just add the sugar in and then kneed the whole lot. This does seem more like what I want, so I’ll give it a try. Plus I suspect that the commercial halva is pressed. You can see some of these presses online and they are large contraptions, certainly something I wouldn’t consider. Thanks again.
Jo Zee
No, this recipe does not require a sugar syrup. The trick is to keep the ingredients as finely ground as possible so that pressing the halva mixture with your hands or a simple kitchen tool becomes relatively easier. Good luck with xylitol and pls let me know how it turns out.
I will let you know how this works. Do you find this halva to have that almost dry gritty flaky texture that melts in your mouth? That is what I’m looking for actually.
Yes, that’s exactly how it turns out, it’s dry, flaky and has a nutty flavor that melts in your mouth, you just need to follow the recipe. Bon appetit in advance
. Cheers.
I discovered or rather, rediscovered Saray Helvasi while I was shopping in the “International” section of the grocery store in Cape Town. The reason I say rediscover is because I remember having it as a child back in Burma, a whole continent away. I had forgotten what it was called and thought it was only available in Burma but when I tried it I was ecstatic at finding something that was one of my favourite sweets as a child. I haven’t been back nor do I know when I’ll be going back to Burma but now that I know I can have this outside of the country is like one of the best things that could’ve happened.
So what I’m trying to say is – thanks for posting this recipe up!
Hİ Nyain, you’re welcome. Do they make it the same way in Burma!? Wow, quite interesting. I hope you try and like it. I would be happy to hear your version of this sweet.
Apparently Turks have adopted these sweets from Arabs, because original Turkic (Central Asian) cuisine had almost no sweets, Central Asians did not have a sweet tooth at all, but now in Turkey we love baklava, helva and all those milk based sweets.
As an 35 year old Turkish guy with Ottoman roots, I have to say that; unfortunately, almost none of these recipes are authentic. Ottoman Fusion would be a better name. On the other hand, I am sure these are all delicious recipes as well.
Hi there, thanks for the comment. Maybe you’re right, yeah. I don’t claim to be an ‘authority’ like yourself. I believe and I have already stated that in my ‘manifesto’,i.e. in the about section, that Ottoman Cuisine can be defined as a ‘fusion’ cuisine already, a fusion of the Balkans, Anatolia, Caucasus, Greece, Armenia, Arabia, Persia and even China. This is what is so good about having a complex multinational heritage, isn’t it? This website is about food from those lands, from the past and from the present, as stated in the about section. So, recipes of food from tables of both 15th century palace people and 19th century city dwellers are included into this website. Those people all were Ottomans, right? Still, I’d appreciate it if you point at exactly what is ‘wrong’ in what specific recipe. Cheers.