Apple Halwa

My brother and sister-in-law were here last weekend and sure enough, the weekend went by very quickly. It is always fun to have them here and it is always fun to visit them in Spokane. My SIL and I had some heart-to-heart conversation this time on various interesting topics......OK, who am I kidding? Our conversations basically involved gossiping and we quite enjoyed it! Yeah, yeah, I know, "small people talk about other people;" but hey, it is OK to do it once in a while.......

My SIL got a bag of apples all the way from Spokane--- the plan was to make this dessert called halwa with those apples. Halwa is a dessert, that I think resembles fudge since it is so dense, that is traditionally made out of semolina/cream of wheat (sooji ka halwa). Then there is gajar ka halwa made with carrots (now available in Costco! Oh yeah!), potatoes, beet root, bottle gourd, apples.... you name it. And so, since I am not a very "dessert-person," she said she would make some.

Ingredients:

1. 6 medium sized apples (any red kind, not the granny smith kind)

2. A few almonds (blanched and powdered would be good)

3. 1-2 teaspoons of clarified butter/ghee- this is optional, apparently-- but I think it imparts a lovely aroma to the halwa.

4. Sugar (this is really per taste- I prefer not-very-sweet, some might like it sweeter, some might just prefer the sweetness from the apples themselves.......)

5. About a cup of milk (again, this is not needed, but I think it adds a better overall consistency to the halwa)

6. A pinch of cardamom powder for the mm-aroma!

Method: 

1. So she (my SIL) washed and peeled the apples and then cut them up into tiny pieces.

Peeling

Ready to go into the food processor

2. These pieces were then put into the food processor and err, I helped with this. So I ran the food processor to basically chop up the apple pieces into tinier pieces. We decided that the next time, it would be better to just mince everything up in the food processor.

Ready to be cooked

3. And then she took a pot, put in a couple teaspoons of ghee/clarified butter. She added some chopped up almonds to this and quickly fried them.

Almonds in

4. Then she added the finely chopped apples to this and started the cooking process.

Apples starting to cook

5. After about 15 minutes on medium flame, by which time the apples were looking nice and soft, she poured in a cup of milk (we used 2% reduced fat milk) and kept stirring everything up.

Milk added

6. She continued to stir for another 10-15 minutes until the liquid evaporated and the apple mixture was all nice and sticky. Towards the end, I added some sugar to it (just eyeballed it), while she continued to stir, so as to mix it all up. And that's it!

7. At the very end, she added a pinch of cardamom powder.

Apple Halwa ready to be served!

I tasted the apple halwa and oh, it was divine! It reminded me of "dumroot" that they make on special occasions back home-- you know, the halwa that is made out of bottle gourd. It is such a delicacy.

Apple Halwa- pretty close to dumroot!

The halwa was a perfect blend of sweet as well as a hint of tart (from the apples of course) and those almonds added a nice crunch to the dessert and of course, the cardamom powder made it smell heavenly. Delicious treat indeed!

Thanks, SIL, for making Apple Halwa for us-- it was excellent. Oh and I enjoyed our heart-to-heart conversations........ next time, we shall discuss ideas, like great people do! ;)

P.S.: This is not a dessert-of-sorts-- this is REAL dessert!