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Besan Halwa is a fudgy Indian dessert made with chickpea flour or besan. Chickpea flour Spoon fudge with cardamom and nuts. How to make Besan Ka Halwa Recipe. Use other grain or bean or lentil flours for variation. Vegan Gluten-free Grain-free Dessert Recipe. 6 Ingredients, 15 minutes! Jump to Recipe
Festive season began this weekend with Navratri celebrations, prep for Dussehra, KarwaChauth and then will be rounded up end of this month with Diwali. In India, this month would be more like December in the US, where everyone is generally in a festive spirit. People visit each other, there are potlucks and dinners. Lots of cooking and sweets, Dressing up and shopping. In the US, the spirit of these festivals is mellow. With each year, it is an extra effort to plan and celebrate some of the events. Probably because there is some competition with the October holidays and pumpkin :). But we always make some festival sweets and snacks for this festive Indian season, however busy the month.
Today’s amazing dessert is brought to you by chickpea flour. Chickpea flour is used in various ways in Indian cuisine. Be it a snack cornbread like cake, or savory pancake , or a sweet ladoo ball, a Burfi fudge, or to make a veggie soup, or many other ways. This dessert uses chickpea flour to make a thick custard, that cools to a halwa state. The whole cardamom seeds in the halwa make this one delectable spoon fudge. Make this with wheat, millet or amaranth, lentil flours for variation.
You can use other flours to make this dessert as well. The consistency of the final halwa can be anywhere from a thin custard to thicker set halwa, depending on the flour. Happy Navratri to everyone who is celebrating! More Dairy-free Indian desserts on the blog here. If you make this dessert, do tag me on Instagram or leave a comment here!
Video:
Besan Halwa - Chickpea flour fudge
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons of oil, organic safflower or canola or coconut
- 3/4 cup chickpea flour or besan
- seeds of 1 green cardamom pod, , whole seeds or crushed to a coarse meal, or use 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/3 cup or more raw sugar or coconut sugar, or a mix of sugar and powdered jaggery
- 3/4 cup hot water
- 2 tablespoons chopped nuts
- 2 tablespoons currants
- a pinch of salt
Instructions
- Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add chickpea flour to the oil. Mix and roast for about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. The flour will be dry, then become like fat breadcrumbs and eventually change color slightly and start to stick to make larger lumps.
- Meanwhile bring 1 cup of water to a boil.
- Add the nuts, currants and salt to the chickpea flour and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the sugar and cardamom seeds and mix in.
- Add 1/2 cup hot boiling water to the skillet and mix in. Add the rest 1/4 cup of the water and continue to mix vigorously. The chickpea flour mixture will become lumpy and eventually become smooth and custard like. Continue to mix to break the lumps. (use a whisk if the lumps do not break within the first 1-2 mins). Cook for about 3 minutes, then take off heat. Garnish with sliced nuts. Serve warn or cold. Store in a closed container for a few hours on the counter. Refrigerate for upto 5 days.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This was easy to make and is so creamy and smooth! The flavor is warm and perfect for Fall! I used a garbanzo / fava bean flour and substituted chopped dates for the currants. It’s lovely! Thank you, Richa!
Delicious! I followed Richa’s advice on making this oil-free and it was perfectly soft and fudgey. A new favorite for us.
I made this last night and had very little of besan, so I did half besan = half millet flour. Thanks to your video (makes it so easy for me) I made it, viola, it was delicious!!!!!!!!!!
I made this last night, it was really good, I will be making it again! Thank you for the recipe.
Awesome! thanks.
Hi Richa,
You suggest that one use other grain or bean or lentil flours for variation. Based on your experiences, which flours would you use instead of besan — in case one does not have any in hand? For instance, could one use millet flour? Would one need to add more sweetener with other flours? Thank you.
Yes, millet, wheat, amaranth, or oat + one of these work well. chickpea flour generally needs the most amount of sweetener, so you are good with other flours.
I like besan halwa very much and nice photoshoot of this ..Thanks
Does this need to be refrigerated?
Not for the day. Store on the counter in a container with a lid. Refrigerate for 4 to 5 days.
What oil do you prefer for this recipe?
organic safflower
Is it at all possible to make this oil-free? Thanks!
You can dry roast the chickpea flour until it changes color slightly. it will take about the same time. 10 mins. Stir occasionally to avoid burning. Add toasted nuts, currents and cardamom. Add the water and mix until custard like. The texture will be more jelly like without the oil.
Awesome, thank you!!
i really need to make homemade sweets for festive season this year. this one will be new to me if i try it 🙂 i know i’d love it, but i sooo want to make burfi! 🙂
You can put this mixture quickly into a greased pan. Cool, slice and there will be Burfi 🙂