GODHUMAI HALWA RECIPE / WHEAT HALWA – THIRUNELVELI HALWA with detailed photo and video recipe. a classic south indian sweet recipe prepared mainly with the wheat milk and sugar.
Godhumai halwa / Wheat halwa / Thirunelveli style halwa has been one of my dreams to make it at home. This is the traditional way of making godhumai halwa by extracting milk from samba whole wheat berries,cooking in ghee till it reaches the desired consistency.
The first time I tasted wheat halwa was when I was kid and it was homemade. Grand mother made it like a project and she made it in a large quantity, so I could see her sweat making it. One has to keep on stirring it so, it was difficult for her I understood.
What I love about the recipe is the caramelizing sugar part. It adds more flavor and colour to this halwa and tastes very close to the authentic Thirunelvali Iruttukadai Halwa.
As I have experience stirring wheat halwa, I just tried with a small quantity today as its really tough to stir single handedly.But its worth the effort I can say, the halwa just melts in your mouth…hot wheat halwa with dripping ghee is a delighful sight to see…What more taste a spoonful its heaven I say :))
wheat halwa and i wasn’t happy with either the texture or thickness of my previous attempts, to be honest it is not one of the easy recipes to be prepared as it requires a lot of patience and effort to prepare it. I had almost given up on this recipe, especially due to the physical strain involved in stirring and mixing.
GODHUMAI HALWA RECIPE / WHEAT HALWA – THIRUNELVELI HALWA
Ingredients
- 1/2 Whole Wheat
- 1 1/2 Cup Sugar
- 8 -10 Cashew nuts
- 3/4 Cup Ghee
Instructions
- Wash and soak the wheat berries overnight(or 8 hrs).
- Drain the water, grind it with 1/2 cup water smoothly.
- Filter it using a large metal strainer.
- Again grind the pulp with another 1/2 cup water. Strain through a metal strainer.
- Keep the collected milk from the ground wheat aside for 30 minutes undisturbed. Drain the excess water. Make sure to use correct sized vessel to ensure draining the excess water easily (my experience).
- In a heavy bottomed vessel, heat 1 tbsp of ghee and fry broken cashew nuts until golden brown and keep aside.
- Add 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tbsp of water to it.
- Continue heating in medium flame, while you keep stirring. It will melt, get dry again and then later start changing colour. At this point you should put the flame to low. Make sure you stir all the time and not let the flame in high or not let the sugar get burnt. Otherwise the whole halwa may turn bitter.
- When the sugar syrup turns golden in colour, this is perfect for this halwa. Add 1 cup water REALLY CAREFULLY AS IT WILL SPLUTTER. Stir well so that the caramelized sugar gets dissolved. Yes, it will solidify and float on the top when you pour water. So mix well to almost dissolve it.
- Now add the remaining sugar and mix until it dissolves. Continue boiling until you get one string consistency. That it, wipe a little syrup from the back of the ladle dipped in sugar syrup, using ur fingers – forefinger and thumb, a string will form inbetween ur fingers without breaking. Be careful not to miss the consistency, make sure you do it in medium flame otherwise you will get burfi instead of halwa.
- Add the drained wheat milk.
- Keep mixing as you are pouring. The colour will change as the milk gets cooked.
- Now start adding ghee little by little, say one tbsp at a time and mix until the ghee gets mixed with the halwa for every tbsp. It will absorb (incorporate the ghee) so add little by little as you mix and stir for a minute and repeat the process.
- At one stage, the ghee will not be absorbed anymore, it will be at the sides as such.
- It may take a lot of time, so patience is the key. Never put the flame in high, do in medium flame always. Keep stirring, the whole process takes 30 mins roughly.
- Now add the cashew nuts and keep stirring until the whole halwa sticks to your laddle you are stirring and rotates freely. Do not switch off as soon as the halwa starts to leave the sides of pan, the texture will be too soft like porridge if you taste. keep stirring until you see whitish spots appear in the halwa and the whole halwa will start changing slightly pale.
- Spread it over a greased plate and let it cool down.
- Optionally you can cut it into pieces or spoon it as such to serving bowls.
Notes
- If the extracted milk is very thick it will get thicken faster and will leave raw smell.So water content should be there so I just drained little of the clear water not fully.
- Once the sugar is caramelized add it immediately, it may form thick crystals but keep stirring it will dissolve by itself.
- It is tough to stir single handedly for an hr so if you are making in bulk, take a helping hand so that you can stir alternatively.
- There is no consistency check just when ghee oozes out stop adding ghee and cook for few mins then switch off.
- Make sure to use a heavy bottomed pan or kadai.
- Use good quality pure ghee for best flavour.
- You can even use half and half oil and ghee but the flavour will differ.
- Do not cook after ghee oozes out, else halwa will become hard very chewy.
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How to make Wheat Milk Halwa with Step by Step :
1.Wash and soak the wheat berries overnight(or 8 hrs).
2. Drain the water, grind it with 1/2 cup water smoothly.
3. Filter it using a large metal strainer.
4. Again grind the pulp with another 1/2 cup water. Strain through a metal strainer.
5. Keep the collected milk from the ground wheat aside for 30 minutes undisturbed. Drain the excess water. Make sure to use correct sized vessel to ensure draining the excess water easily (my experience).
6. In a heavy bottomed vessel, I used a heat 1 tbsp of ghee and fry broken cashew nuts until golden brown and keep aside.
7. Add 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tblsp of water to it.
8. Continue heating in medium flame, while you keep stirring. It will melt, get dry again and then later start changing colour. At this point you should put the flame to low. Make sure you stir all the time and not let the flame in high or not let the sugar get burnt. Otherwise the whole halwa may turn bitter.
9. When the sugar syrup turns golden in colour, this is perfect for this halwa. Add 1 cup water REALLY CAREFULLY AS IT WILL SPLUTTER. Stir well so that the caramelized sugar gets dissolved. Yes, it will solidify and float on the top when you pour water. So mix well to almost dissolve it.
10. Now add the remaining sugar and mix until it dissolves. Continue boiling until you get one string consistency. That it, wipe a little syrup from the back of the ladle dipped in sugar syrup, using ur fingers – forefinger and thumb, a string will form inbetween ur fingers without breaking. Be careful not to miss the consistency, make sure you do it in medium flame otherwise you will get burfi instead of halwa.
11. Add the drained wheat milk.
12. Keep mixing as you are pouring. The colour will change as the milk gets cooked.
13. Now start adding ghee little by little, say one tbsp at a time and mix until the ghee gets mixed with the halwa for every tbsp. It will absorb (incorporate the ghee) so add little by little as you mix and stir for a minute and repeat the process.
14. At one stage, the ghee will not be absorbed anymore, it will be at the sides as such.
15. It may take a lot of time, so patience is the key. Never put the flame in high, do in medium flame always. Keep stirring, the whole process takes 30 mins roughly.
16. Now add the cashew nuts and keep stirring until the whole halwa sticks to your laddle you are stirring and rotates freely. Do not switch off as soon as the halwa starts to leave the sides of pan, the texture will be too soft like porridge if you taste. keep stirring until you see whitish spots appear in the halwa and the whole halwa will start changing slightly pale.
17. Spread it over a greased plate and let it cool down.
18. Optionally you can cut it into pieces or spoon it as such to serving bowls.
