A simple recipe for Azerbaijani halva made from flour step by step with photos.

A very unusual and original Azerbaijani dessert is halva made from flour with nuts. For a richer taste, additional nuts are added. Children really like halva: sweet and tasty.

To prepare Azerbaijani halva from flour at home, you need to put in a minimum of effort. The result is a very sweet and tasty dessert for children and adults. Frozen halva has a thick consistency and a pleasant aroma. The original recipe does not contain nuts, however, it turns out even tastier with them. Good luck!

Number of servings: 5-6

• National cuisine: Azerbaijani cuisine
• Type of dish: Dessert
• Recipe difficulty: Simple recipe

• Preparation time: 15 minutes
• Cooking time: 2 hours
• Number of servings: 2 servings
• Calorie Amount: 303 kilocalories
• Occasion: For children

Ingredients for 2 servings

• Sugar - 1/1, Glass
• Water - 1/1, Glass
• Butter - 70 grams
• Flour - 50 grams
• Walnuts - 1/1, Glass
• Cinnamon - To taste
• Saffron - To taste

Step by step

1. Pour sugar into the pan, pour in water. Boil over medium heat, stirring. Cook the syrup until thickened for 7-8 minutes.
2. Add saffron and cinnamon to taste. Stir, remove from heat, cool.
3. Peel the walnuts and grind them in a blender.
4. Heat a dry frying pan, pour flour into it, fry until creamy, stirring.
5. Add soft butter to the pan. Fry together for a couple of minutes, then pour in the syrup and stir until smooth. Then add chopped nuts.
6. Transfer the halva to a plate, smooth it out and cool slightly. Place the plate in the refrigerator for several hours. Bon appetit!

Blogger Alexander Cheban writes:

We continue to get acquainted with Azerbaijan, today I will only cover the topic of national cuisine a little, but I will start with the sweetest :) The cult of tea and sweets in Azerbaijan, an incredible number of types of jam and most importantly - the exclusive secrets of producing Sheki halva!

Well, shouldn’t all the reports show only the sights?! There should be a place for gastronomic posts... and especially since in Azerbaijan food is a cult. Everything, absolutely everything that is cooked in this country is incredibly tasty, satisfying and very plentiful! But I'll start with sweets :)

They drink tea from a glass typical for this region - armud (armud - pear), the tea does not get cold, and the edges are not hot, very convenient! Moreover, the volume of the armuda is sufficient, unlike Turkey, where it is somewhat small. Tea is drunk mostly black, sometimes with the addition of herbs or purely herbal. Green tea is not very popular, but rather came recently as a fashion trend. Tea, of course, without sugar. With tea there is always an abundance of sweets on the table.

Also served with tea are different types of nuts, raisins, pressed sugar with different syrups.

Jam

I have probably never eaten such exotic types of jam as, for example, watermelon jam, jam from young walnuts, white dogwood, and apples of paradise. I couldn’t believe the last one for a long time and realized that it was apples only after I felt the seeds on my tongue; it looked like a cherry. The last three types of jam are the hallmark of the Gabala region of the country.

Baklava

I strongly associate baklava with Azerbaijan, each region with its own characteristics. My favorite was the baklava “uchgulag”, which means treushnik, a sweet highlight of the Gabala region of the country.

Halva

This dish absolutely changed my ideas about halva, I will dwell on it in more detail. This is a completely different dish, different from the gray mass of waste seeds that is sold here... On the very first evening, I noted Sheki halva, the best and most special halva in Azerbaijan.

Wherever you come in the country, be sure to order Sheki halva, it is likely that its taste will make you visit Sheki itself:)

Halva is an oriental dessert made from sugar, nuts or seeds; the word is used to describe several types of confectionery. One type of halva is based on ground oil seeds. Another type is based on wheat flour or vegetables.

Sheki halva

This halva can only be tasted in Azerbaijan. Painstaking work and cooking conditions limit the ability to prepare it at home. That's why we only buy it ready-made. However, this delicacy, along with other national food, is prepared for the holiday of Navruz (an ancient New Year holiday, celebrated in March).

There are many recipes for Sheki halva on the Internet, but you can only enjoy real Sheki halva in the city of the same name. The fact is that the secret of its production is known to those for whom the preparation of halva has been a family business for 200 years. People call them “halvachi”. They don’t reveal the recipe to anyone, so no one will ever know how to properly bake the net-shaped rishta, how many chopped nuts to add to the dough, or how to prepare the sweet syrup. Be careful, in summer, due to the high content of oil and rice flour, halva spoils faster. There is only one thing left to do - come and try a piece in person.

When I tried this halva back in Baku, I had absolutely no idea how such a taste was formed, soft and crunchy at the same time. However, I had an amazing opportunity to see the holy of holies in Sheki - a workshop for the production of halva.
This is Mamed Saleh, the owner of a small workshop for the production of Sheki halva, he is already a third generation master, his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were “halva.”

And now, actually, about the process of preparing this confectionery masterpiece. First, prepare a dough based on rice flour, pour it into a hot frying pan in several layers using special containers, forming a grid. This grid is called rishta, 1 rishta is ready to be removed from the pan after 1 minute.

Then the dish itself is formed - 6 layers of rice rishtas are placed on the bottom, then a special nut mixture is poured and another 4 layers of rice rishtas are placed on top.

A special jam is made from saffron, which is used to decorate the top of the halva, applying it to the surface with a goose feather.

This is wedding halva.

Then the halva is baked in a frying pan for 30-40 minutes.

After this, it is generously filled with a special syrup based on sugar or, in a more expensive version, based on honey.

The next day the halva is soaked.

Then it is cut, weighed and packaged in kilogram boxes. What scales and what box design! Yes, modern printing will never compare with this provincial authenticity.

Azerbaijani halva is an incredibly tasty delicacy that is also very healthy. Everyone's favorite oriental delicacy can now be prepared at home. We recommend that all those with a sweet tooth try making Azerbaijani halva themselves.

Ingredients:

• granulated sugar - 0.6 kg.
• butter - 0.6 kg;
• flour - 1 kg;

Halva in Azerbaijani: step-by-step recipe

1. Place a small saucepan of water (300 ml) on the stove and bring to a boil, add all the sugar and stir until it dissolves.
2. At the same time as step 1, put another small saucepan into which we melt the butter. The fire is minimal so as not to burn.
3. Place a large dry saucepan with flour on the stove, stirring constantly, until the flour has a pleasant “nutty” smell. It will appear very quickly, especially if you decide to reduce the amount of ingredients. Be careful!
4. By this time the butter should have melted, pour it into a saucepan with flour, turn off the heat under it and vigorously stir until smooth.
5. Pour the finished syrup into a large saucepan and, returning the heat under it, stir until a homogeneous mass is obtained.

What kind of halva did I get, look at the photo. And the taste... The taste is evidenced by the fact that in literally half an hour we devoured with enormous appetite (and burning our fingers) the entire kilogram that I made. For the first time, the halva turned out just wonderful, it seems to me.

Fry a kilogram of flour in a deep frying pan or cauldron until a nutty smell appears, but adjust the heat so that the color of the flour does not change. Add six hundred milliliters of ghee to the fried flour and stir the flour.
At this point, you can add a quarter teaspoon of cardamom or a tablespoon of coriander to the flour and butter, if desired. In my opinion, coriander is better than cardamom, but it can be prepared without spices at all.
Also at this moment you can add roasted and ground walnuts to the halva, but, as I am convinced, the taste of the halva does not change much. However, if you want, then add half a kilogram of nuts, minced through a meat grinder.
After the flour and butter are mixed at the lowest heat, add either sugar or prepared syrup to them.
However, it must be said about the syrup that it can be of medium thickness - add three hundred milliliters of water to six hundred grams of sugar and boil to 107-108 degrees, and if you don’t have a thermometer, then take part of the syrup, drop it on a plate, press it against it spoon and lift: thin threads should stretch.
But this syrup is too hot for flour, it must be allowed to cool to 90-95 degrees, the halva should also have approximately the same temperature, the heating should be generally at a minimum, or even put the halva on a divider and pour in the syrup, stirring thoroughly. After you have added the syrup, you can increase the heat briefly and slightly, but continue to stir the halva. As soon as the oil begins to separate from the mixture, the halva is ready.
If you decide to take the simple route, add sugar to the flour and butter mixture. Just keep in mind that ghee is essentially pure milk fat without any moisture. The flour is dried during frying. So there is nothing for sugar to dissolve in. Therefore, immediately add milk to the mixture. It is better to heat the milk to a boil and keep it over low heat. It can take up to three glasses of milk; it is necessary for all the sugar to dissolve, but you must keep in mind that the flour will also absorb moisture from the milk! Therefore, it is necessary to add gradually and also gradually increase the temperature of the mass and constantly mix everything, until the oil is separated from the mixture.
Do not leave the prepared halva in a hot bowl so that it does not burn and lose its nutty smell, which, let me remind you, is created not only by nuts, but also by the fried flour and ghee itself. Transfer the mixture to plates in which you will serve, after decorating.
This halva turns out soft, like dough, but at room temperature it is not sticky or, on the contrary, crumbly. Sugar in such halva should not crystallize.

I know that now almost every one of you is ready to grab me by the sleeve and ask: “What about that halva from the store, the one made from sunflower seeds or sesame seeds, crispy, crumbly, light in weight and unusually satisfying?”
Well, that's a completely different story!
The roots of this halva lie in blessed Iran, where life was once so good that people gladly paid for the services of confectioners whose shops competed with each other in the sun-drenched bazaars of ancient cities.
It is not known who was the first to come up with the idea of ​​adding sugar syrup to ground sesame seeds, other oilseeds or nuts, foaming it and allowing it to crystallize. But each hack zealously guarded the technologies invented by him or acquired by inheritance from the competitors.
But can you hide an awl in a bag? Someone found out that soap root is used to foam sugar, someone tried to prepare halva with beaten egg whites, and halva began to spread throughout the region, changing and acquiring new forms, aromas, tastes and ingredients.

And from halva to one of the pinnacles of oriental confectionery art - nougat - there was only one step left. This step is invert syrup.
In fact, just a few pages ago, Shahbalat muallim showed us how invert syrup is prepared. Citric acid is added to sugar and water - that’s all, nothing more, no secrets. Add citric acid and prepare the syrup, bring it to the state of a thin thread (temperature 107-108 degrees) and cook at this temperature for 25-30 minutes, gradually lowering the heat (how well burning wood can do this!). The resulting syrup will not harden, even when cooling, since sucrose, as a result of the reaction with citric acid, has partially broken down into fructose and glucose, and glucose syrup itself is not prone to crystallization and does not allow the syrup as a whole to crystallize.
In fact, you can also cook ordinary sugar syrup, without citric acid, but with the addition of glucose, and as a result, obtain a non-crystallizing syrup even with a very low moisture content - 10-12%, and this is exactly what we need to achieve when we want to prepare nougat . You can add more citric acid than normal and, without waiting for all the acid to react with sucrose, neutralize it with a soda solution - then the syrup will turn out foamy. But to prepare our nougat we will take a different route.

Look, nougat can be cooked from two types of syrup - honey and sugar. Honey already contains quite a lot of fructose and glucose, but there is very little sucrose. In addition, honey also contains other sugars. Therefore, we will definitely add sugar syrup to the honey syrup, in an amount of approximately one to two.
We will heat approximately three hundred grams of honey separately and heat it to a temperature of 130 degrees. If you do not have a thermometer, then let some darkening of the honey and separation of foam serve as an indicator for you, which should not be removed when it appears.
And to six hundred grams of sugar add citric acid on the tip of a knife, a glass of water and a glass of glucose. Don’t let this ingredient with a pharmacy name scare you, and you don’t need to run to the pharmacy to get it, but go to a store that sells various ingredients for confectioners. For example, I easily found such a shop at the Dorogomilovsky market. Confectionery glucose is sold in the form of a thick, transparent, colorless syrup with almost no odor. But, if you do not have the opportunity to buy glucose, add a little more citric acid to the sugar - a third of a teaspoon, this will be enough, only then you will need not six hundred grams of sugar, but eight hundred. Place the syrup on the stove, bring to a boil, wait until the sugar dissolves and adjust the boiling so that the syrup does not thicken or change color - it should boil at a temperature of 107-108 degrees for twenty to twenty-five minutes.
After this, you can turn up the heat and, constantly stirring the syrup, bring the temperature to 150 degrees. The syrup will thicken and acquire the color and consistency of fresh honey, as it is at room temperature. It is necessary to stir the syrup being prepared because as it thickens inside the container, convection slows down and there is a risk that the syrup near the walls and bottom will overheat and acquire the taste of burnt sugar. But we only need the syrup to change color to honey and acquire a characteristic aroma.
Remove the syrup from the heat and continue stirring it from time to time, allowing it to thicken at the walls, bottom and on the surface, that is, try to ensure that the entire mass of syrup cools evenly.
Beat three egg whites with three tablespoons of sugar. Wait until the honey syrup reaches a temperature of approximately 50-60 degrees. Just don’t touch the syrup with your finger to check its temperature, but touch the dishes, because the syrup, even at this temperature, will burn the tip of your finger, be healthy, and not everyone likes it - some don’t wash their hands properly and assume the same uncleanliness in everyone else. Once the honey syrup has cooled, start whisking in the egg whites. You need to take a wooden spatula and stir, always passing the spatula along the bottom and walls of the dish. After this, you can add sugar syrup that has cooled to 70-80 degrees. Since it will be quite hot, this heat will be enough to ensure that the air bubbles enclosed in the egg white foam get a fairly dense shell - because the white will coagulate.
And now we need to mix for quite a long time, just as Shahbalat muallim showed us. Simply, since you will have less syrup, you will have to stir for 15-20 minutes. You need to ensure that the nougat becomes light, lighter than condensed milk and somewhat thicker than it. Watch how the nougat drips from the spoon.

Look, by this moment the nougat will have cooled down to forty degrees, which means that you should hurry up. Otherwise, you simply won’t have enough strength to stir nuts into the nougat.
Yes, nuts. What kind of nuts? Yes, which ones do you like? Just don’t forget to bake them, make them fragrant and tasty. I took pistachios, almonds and walnuts in approximately equal proportions. And if you have good, high-quality dried fruits, dried as expected - to a dry sound when dropped on the table - and not smeared with vegetable oil to give shine and presentation, then why not add them to the nougat? I cut the dried apricots into four to six pieces, and left two types of Samarkand raisins as is.
But you can select an assortment of nougat fillers to suit your taste - from candied fruits to cashews. In my opinion, it is good to combine dried fruits with sourness and quite fatty nuts with a rich aroma. If I wanted to give the nougat an almond flavor, I would roast three or four bitter almonds, grind them and add them immediately, after the egg white, to the honey syrup. I would grind some spices, like cardamom or dried lemon zest, with sugar to powder and add them at the same moment.
However, one of the most crucial moments comes at the very end.

The nuts should be half the weight of the resulting nougat - seven hundred grams. And about the same amount of dried fruits. It’s not easy to mix nuts and dried fruits into a mass that thickens right before your eyes. You can, of course, warm up the nougat a little, but be careful not to burn it anywhere, and for this you again need to stir constantly and thoroughly. But it’s better to try to have time to intervene - apply force, try to ensure that the nougat envelops every nut, every zest.
Now wet your hands with water, take a lump of nougat with both hands, squeeze it, compact it, knead it properly and spread it on... here is the problem!

Sticky! You see, nougat sticks! I decided to place it on a baking sheet covered with cling film. So before using it, we were tormented to remove this film. Only with wet hands - there is no other way. It also sticks to the foil. I read somewhere to put nougat on flour. But this is a bad idea - who would like the taste of raw flour? Sprinkle the dishes with a layer of chopped nuts? Maybe this is a way out, but you need to keep in mind that even after cooling, and even after freezing, nougat remains amorphous. It flows slowly but noticeably.
So you take it out of the refrigerator, put it on the board and, before it has time to flow and stick to the board, with sharp and confident movements, chop it into strips with a hatchet, and then into cubes. You can’t cut nougat with a knife - the knife doesn’t go through it, it’s thick, viscous, like resin, the nuts inside are hard - only with a hatchet.
And immediately onto a plate and serve.
ABOUT! Invented! Nougat should be spread on thin dry cookies - this is the solution!
Otherwise, you put it on a plate, it looks appetizing, everyone wants it, but you can’t pick it up with a spoon, you have to use your hands. When you pick it up, at first you feel like it’s an absolutely solid body. I took a bite, at first there was a feeling that this mass would stick in my teeth, but no! Nothing like this! It just melts in your mouth, chews perfectly, the nuts crunch nicely and it’s the perfect sweetness for tea. But now, the first piece of nougat is in your mouth, you still want a sip of tea, and then... this solid body flows slowly, imperceptibly to the eye, and you need to finish it immediately, so that your hand, as soon as it is wiped off from the sweet with a damp napkin, again reaches for the plate .

And the nougat will remain on the plate for several hours, so it will form a lump again, you need to tear it off the dishes again, put it on the board and chop it with a pleasant crunch to the ear: here, try what kind of nougat I got!

In general, in the original recipe, halva is prepared without adding nuts. But since everyone at my house loves them, I couldn’t resist and added some ground walnuts to the halva. The halva turned out very tasty and aromatic. Of course, it’s different from the store-bought one, but my family really liked this dessert.

List of ingredients

• sugar - 1/2 cup
• water - 1/2 cup
• melted butter- 50-75 g
• flour - 50 g
• walnuts - 1-2 handfuls
• saffron - to taste
• cinnamon - to taste

Cooking method

Prepare all ingredients. I took the food in double portions. There are no nuts in the photo because I decided to add them during the cooking process.

Pour sugar into a saucepan and add water. Place on the fire and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook the syrup until slightly thickened, about 8-10 minutes. In this case, the syrup must be stirred constantly.

Add saffron and cinnamon. Remove the syrup from the heat and let it cool slightly. Unfortunately, I didn't have any saffron at home, so I added turmeric to the syrup using the tip of a knife.

Grind walnuts in a blender. I also lightly fried them in a dry frying pan.

Heat a dry frying pan and pour flour into it. Fry it until a beautiful creamy color, stirring continuously. In the photo the flour turned out a little lighter than it actually was.

Then add butter to the pan with flour. Fry the mixture for 1-2 minutes, without stopping stirring. Pour the syrup into the resulting mass and quickly mix everything until smooth. The mixture will sizzle strongly. Don't be scared and continue stirring quickly)) At the end, add ground nuts. But this is optional))

Pour the finished mixture onto a plate or into a mold. Smooth the surface and place in the refrigerator until completely cool. The chilled halva turned out to be very tender and soft.

Bon appetit!