Gajar Halwa – Carrot Pudding
Carrot-based sweet dessert pudding made out of grated carrot, milk, sugar, ghee, khoya/milk mawa, cardamom powder, raisins, nuts and saffron.
Gajar halwa is a light nutritious dessert with less fat than many other typical Indian sweets. Gajar halwa is a popular dessert all over India and often served at most festivals. This dish could be great for Diwali! The dish is popular among adults as well as children. Adding saffron and cardamom powder to this dish adds a next level of flavor to it!
It takes good amount of time to make this dish but it is well worth spending time and effort! I prefer long organic carrots and whole milk for this recipe which makes it naturally sweet and rich! I also like to make khoya/milk mawa at home. Khoya/Milk mawa has ricotta cheese like consistency and it adds great texture to the halwa.
My family loves it, hope yours does too!
Happy and Healthy cooking!
Gajar/Carrot Halwa
Ingredients
- 6 cup Grated Carrots I prefer long organic carrots for this recipe, not baby carrots
- 2 cup Whole Milk
- ¼ cup Ghee
- ¾ cup Sugar
- 1 pinch Saffron
Khoya (Milk Mawa) Ingredients
- 2 tbsp Ghee
- 1 cup Milk Powder
- 1 cup Whole Milk
Garnishing
- 1 cup Chopped Cashew unsalted
- ½ cup Raisins
- 1 tsp Cardamom Powder
Instructions
Make khoya – Milk mawa
- Warm 2 tbsp of ghee in a deep pan.
- Add 1 cups of whole milk to the ghee and bring it to boil.
- Once the milk comes to the boil, turn the heat down and start adding milk powder to boiling milk slowly while stirring frequently. This step requires constant stirring to make sure there are no lumps.
- Turn the heat to medium and keep cooking milk powder in milk/ghee mixture while stirring constantly until it thickens up and becomes like ricotta cheese consistency.
- Once the milk mawa is done, take it off the stove and keep it aside.
Prepare shredded carrots
- Peel the carrots and grate them using a food processor.
- Heat ¼ cup of ghee in a deep pan.
- Once the ghee is warm, add grated carrots and cook on medium heat while stirring frequently. This step take good amount of time.
- Keep cooking carrots until they change color to deeper orange, gets heavier, and becomes almost half as much in quantity. You can also tell if they are cooked or not just by tasting them!
- Once the the carrots are cooked, add 2 cups of whole milk to the carrots and cook it more. We want to keep cooking while stirring frequently until almost all the milk is gone.
- Once the milk is all cooked away, add milk mawa/khoya that we prepared earlier and ¾ cup of sugar to the carrots and mix it very well. This step will loosen the halwa again.
- Keep cooking halwa while stirring frequently until most of the moisture if cooked away. Halwa is done when the spatula you are using stand in the middle of the halwa without falling!
- Once the halwa is cooked all the way, take it off the stove. Add chopped cashews, raisins, cardamom powder and saffron. Mix it very well.
- Serve it either warm, at room temperature or cold!
