Gajar Halwa (Carrot and Cardamom Pudding)

This recipe leaves out the mawa - soft cheese - that is the essence of gajjar halwa. Freshly grated nutmeg and saffron are also essential. Best served warm with toasted nuts and golden raisins...

Made it vegan by subbing coconut oil for the ghee, and a mixture of full fat coconut milk and soy milk for the whole milk. Did everything else exactly as written. Absolutely fantastic.

Instead of ghee/clarified butter, what would happen if one used regular butter? There would be extra moisture & milk proteins, but would the latter affect the taste?

@JimVijay - By all means use butter - it's more readily available in the US than ghee. (Many restaurants substitute Crisco for ghee because it's cheap.) I use butter for this recipe myself Butter is about 80% butter-fat, however - ghee is 100% - so increase the quantity accordingly. RE: butter's milk solids: They work nicely with the Halva, which, after all, contains milk.

I learned to make to make this from the woman who was the cook at the Indian embassy! She was a treasure-- her version was much simpler and always divine- Not to cast any shadow on this version, which I will also try. But she just cooked the grated carrot directly in the milk. We used the box grater on the side with the very fine shreds- NOT the one with the little holes, but the tiny thin long shreds. Cardamom, no nuts, turbinado sugar instead of white, a splash of rose water to finish.

Good and simple recipe. Many Indian cooks use a shortcut: 100 gm/7 tbsp of nonfat milk powder +2 tbsp ghee instead of whole milk in step 2, plus a shorter step 1 (15 minutes) so that the carrots are still moist enough to take up the powder. (Nonfat dry milk is the variety most widely available in the US because whole-milk powder,has a much shorter shelf life after opening the pack: its fat tends to go rancid unless used up quickly.)

Thank you for making this the home page recipe on Diwali! To the commenter who said saffron and soft cheese are essential, my Uttar Predishi in-laws use neither. Like all Indian recipes, there is tremendous variation and that’s to be celebrated, not criticized. I made this with olive oil and skim milk and ginger cane sugar and a mix carrots and parsnips because that’s what we ha don hand. It was delicious.

You can probably use dried cardamom powder, but the powder does leave behind a slightly grainy texture because it doesn't dissolve in the milk. The flavour should be good if the powder is very fresh. Using the pods is very easy; just pop them into the milk while stirring. You can break them open or not, as you wish. The flavour of the cardamom will seep into the milk and carrot mixture, and you can remove them at the end. Good luck!

I used half a stick of regular butter, sauteed the grated carrots in the butter for a long time. Used evaporated milk to cut down on cooking time and light brown sugar instead. Added raisins, almonds and cardamom and it turned out delightful!

If using butter, just boil it till the its clear and you see the milk solids separate. This takes less than 5 minutes. Also, for a richer flavor, use cream instead of milk. I let the cream slowly reduce in a saucepan before adding to the carrot mix. Infuse cream with saffron for more flavor. Also, adding 3/4 cups of almond meal towards the end enhances the flavor greatly. Happy Diwali!

Really love this. I had a hard time determining when the milk was 'absorbed', and found a video on YouTube to see when they stopped stirring. It really does get very jammy with patience. It took much longer than expected, around 2 hours, but you can let it go while you do something else and just sit every few minutes. I used lactaid and wish I would have cut the sugar a bit to account for the increaced sweetness.

This was a delightful dessert! I loved both the flavor and the texture. I ended up having some leftover, which I used in place of shredded carrots in a batch of carrot muffins. So good!