Halva - Well I couldn’t eat a whole one
Sunday’s baking session demanded something a little bit different. Dragged down by the chocolate and cake of the season, I couldn’t help but want to try something new, something a bit more exotic. I was taken by Dan Lepard’s recipe for Halva, one of those treats rarely found and I couldn’t help but expect a freshly made batch to beat the dry mixes you occasionally find in the supermarket.
Adapted from Dan Lepard’s recipe (reproduced below).
Sesame Ginger Halva
This makes a sweet halva similar to the sort you see in Middle Eastern stores - wrapped in foil and sometimes studded with pistachios, or a combination of chocolate and vanilla halva swirled together - and is technically a kind of fudge. The texture produced by this recipe is very creamy, without the sugary flakiness found in shop-bought. This is because the syrup the ginger is packed in contains glucose, which slows the formation of sugar crystals as it cools and gives the halva a creamy texture. Perfect cut into little squares to have with short black coffee and arak after dinner.
250g tahini
100g stem ginger, strained from its syrup
200g caster sugar
50ml water
50g of the syrup
Spoon the tahini and the oil separated from it into a bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk until it is smooth and emulsified.
Chop the ginger into ½cm cubes. Line the base of a 2lb loaf tin or similar with a buttered sheet of foil.
Place the sugar, water and 50g syrup from the stem ginger in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5-10 minutes until a drop of the toffee hardens when popped into a glass of cold water, and can be squeezed with the fingers into a soft ball.
Next, add the ginger cubes and heat until the toffee boils again, then remove from the heat and add the tahini. Beat until the mixture thickens, then tip into the foil-lined tin. Cut into squares when warm.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/sep/02/features.weekend5
