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Halvah update–I think I’ve got it

Posted on January 4, 2013 by DebbieN

Just before we left for Boston (22 degree weather, anyone? anyone?–too much Ferris Bueller on the first week of school break), I revisited the Halvah Conundrum: how to make halvah that has the right texture when no one’s ever described it properly in a recipe. Last time’s attempt, which made use of a food processor, wasn’t too bad but the texture was still crumbly and tough–overworked, most likely.

Then I read a comment on another food site that recommended working the tehina/sugar syrup mixture like fudge by kneading the mixture in one direction as it cooled to get it to the right semicrystalline texture. I’d seen footage of a career fudge maker paddling the mass of chocolate and sugar syrup on a marble slab until it stiffened up, and thought the Syrian halvah manufacturing process (mechanized boxing glove in a vat of tehina and hot syrup) looked like a similar idea. So I thought kneading the mixture might strike the right balance between halvah that came out too limp and oily and the meringue-like stuff I’d produced last time–too aerated, and when pressed together, too tough and crumbly.

So  this time I skipped the food processor for blending the sugar syrup with the tehina and flavorings. I stirred the vanilla and lemon juice and powdered clove into the tehina while the syrup was cooking in the microwave. I’d forgotten to scale down the amount of lemon juice for a smaller amount of tehina–maybe this helped a bit, actually, because adding a small amount of water-based liquid to tehina stiffens it and makes it a bit doughy. Maybe that little bit of extra lemon juice helped give the mixture a start on developing the volume it needs without overworking or drying it out too much?

I stirred the hot, thickened sugar syrup into the tehina mix in thirds using a hand whisk, thinking that maybe not all of the syrup would become overworked if I did it in stages. After all the syrup was in the mixing bowl, I folded the limp oily brown mass (my heart was sinking when I saw this, but I bravely continued) back onto itself several times with a fork, essentially kneading it in the bowl, 10-20 turns, maybe half a minute worth of time, just until it turned a little lighter and stiffer, but not as stiff as meringues. I started with only a third of a pound of tehina, so for a full recipe, it would probably take a bit longer.

Then I pressed it flat into a container with a lid and stuck it in the fridge overnight. The next day I cut into it–I could cut thin slices! and it was almost like deli halvah! It’s still not quite as light and crystalline, it’s still a bit chewier, but it’s definitely closer. Next time: try the egg whites beaten in with the tehina, and then the hot syrup mixed in…

[April 20, 2014: A new question on halvah, with a few updates from me]

David S:

Debbie, I have been down a similar path in trying at times over several years to create halvah like Achva’s (my fave). But it has been textural failure after textural failure. Each time, the result is worth eating and tasty, but that elusive texture…can’t get it. So, I am thinking that the saponaria may be an important detail. The problem is, I have been unable to find it in reasonably small amounts (an ounce or two would prob. last a long time, but I see it for sale only by the 1lb container and it’s not cheap). And, if I did find some, it’s not clear how much should be used–1/4 to 1/2 tsp for a pound of halvah? If you know where I might buy small quantities, please let me know. I live in the San Fran. Bay Area, and usually about anything can be found around here, but saponaria (powder, I presume) is a tough one.

Oh–and the lemon juice: I don’t see that ingredient listed in commercial halvahs. Is it just for flavor, or is it a functional ingredient?

Achva’s ingredients for vanilla halvah: Sesame Seeds, Glucose Syrup, Sugar, Vegetable Fat (Palm), Natural Spice – Saponariae Root, Natural Identical Vanilla.

Btw, I have tried using glucose instead of regular sugar, and no luck. The Achva above is a mix of glucose and sugar. Odd that more fat is added!! It’s not as if sesame paste is a low-fat product to start with. I wonder if this is palm kernel oil, added for its solidity? I don’t recall seeing this ~10 years ago on their label.

Thanks for your detailed blog–it’s reassuring to know others are struggling with this too.

Hi David! Thanks–I’m never sure whether I fall into the “interesting experiment” category of foodieism or the “just plain weird”, but I appreciate it.

I’ve finally managed to find a YouTube video on a Turkish (I think) halvah maker who shows the saponaria root extract mixed in  with the hot syrup first–it makes a very white, thick ribbony foam like Swiss (or Italian) meringue (that’s probably why some halvah recipes I’ve seen use whipped egg whites, come to think of it) or marshmallow. Then they pour a large dollop of that mixture (in the half-gallon or 2-liter range) over a big working vat of tehina that must be 3 or 4 gallons (12-16 liters) and start folding it in with his hand–looks like a real workout for the guy doing it. He has a silicone hot glove on his mixing hand and keeps turning the work bowl as he mixes. It takes about 5-10 minutes for him to incorporate all of it gently and it starts cooling down to thick ribbons of stuff that dissolve back into the mass before the whole thing suddenly starts to look like bread dough.

That said, I’ve also seen a few recipes lately with no saponaria or egg white and that use a blender or food processor and the pictures of the resulting halvah look fine with a lot less work–as did the stuff in “Aromas of Aleppo”, so I think they either found the sweet spot on how long to boil the syrup or they were lucky and someone showed them or they don’t mind if it’s not deli-perfect in texture. Or maybe they’re lying and bought their perfect 3-inch-high slabs from a local deli. (jealous, moi?)

What else–oh. The lemon juice is for flavor, so taste and see if you like it, I suppose. I think it tastes pretty good with the ground clove and the vanilla and keeps it from being too blandly sweet. It’s not detectable as “lemony” unless you double or triple the amount, which I have done just to see if adding a little more juice to the tehina and stirring would stiffen it and give it a little more structure ahead of adding the syrup. Even then, it wasn’t bad. The palm oil is a very inexpensive fat/filler ingredient that’s gaining ground in processed food everywhere, mostly in baked goods but sometimes in spreads as well. I disapprove on principle because it dilutes the tehina flavor, plus it’s high in saturated fat, even though it’s vegetarian. One reason (other than simple interest in playing with my food…) why I wanted to try making it from scratch.

— DebbieN

[December 9, 2013: This question came in too late to post as a comment to this page, but I thought it was worth adding here–DebbieN]

On 2013/11/27
Elena

Hi, Debbie!
I want to try a home-made halva too. and I have all ingredients ( include soapwort), but I would prefer to create some sugar-reduce variation. What do you think – is it possible to reduce quantity of sugar syrup in your recipe?

On 2013/12/9

Hi Elena,
I don’t know–I don’t have instructions for a version with soapwort (I’m impressed that you can get it where you are). I’m still struggling to get the texture of my halvah right even this much later, and I still haven’t tried a version with whipped egg whites folded into the tehina before adding the syrup. Without egg whites or soapwort, just sugar syrup and tehina and flavorings, I wouldn’t try substituting for all the sugar–something tells me you need some sugar there to create the microcrystalline structure. But on the other hand, the Israeli brand Achva does make an artificially sweetened version that sells in our local Armenian grocery alongside their regular halvah, the standard cans of Joyva, and the (to my palate) slightly-too-sweet Cortas and Ziyadi (I think?). So theoretically it’s possible to go lower-sugar.

One way would be just cutting down on the sugar proportion and perhaps cooking the syrup to a slightly higher stage (ie a little beyond soft ball)–though it might seize up when you stir it into the tehina, unless you heated the tehina somewhat before mixing. Some recipes do call for heating the tehina to 120 F, which might keep the hot syrup from “shocking” and seizing up hard. Or else you might cut down a little on sugar syrup for the amount of tehina and add artificial sweetener to the tehina mixture before stirring in the syrup.

With soapwort, you might get more structure with less sugar syrup, so you could probably add artificial sweetener more effectively, but I don’t have a recipe for it and don’t know how to work with it. If it’s not too expensive and you’re willing to risk it or you’ve made halvah successfully before, try reducing the sugar syrup by 1/3 and adding sweetener to the tehina, keeping everything else the same. I would do this for a sample recipe amount, maybe just half a cup of tehina and proportional sugar syrup. Don’t risk a whole pound of tehina and 2 cups of sugar!

One thing I have discovered (yesterday, in fact) is that if the halvah comes out too soft and sticky, like limp caramels, you can put it in a microwaveable bowl, microwave it a minute or two until it just foams up and turns a lighter creamier color, and then beat air into it a few times with a fork until it just begins to stiffen like mashed potatoes. Unfortunately mine seized up and turned to sandy crumbs just after that point, but it still came out closer to right once I packed it together and let it cool.

Best of luck–DebbieN

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Homemade Halvah

Posted on September 18, 2012 by DebbieN
Sesame halvah with pistachios

A little trickier than it looks–this one is nearly right and tastes good, but it was stiffer and more crumbly than professional halvah once it cooled. Next time!

I first tasted halvah at the age of six while visiting my cousins, who lived in my town but had been to Israel the year before. One afternoon my aunt shaved off a very thin sliver from this mysterious loaf of sandy light-brown stuff and handed to me with the caution, “Only a little piece at a time. It’s very rich.” Which it was, but the feathery impossible texture melted on my tongue and I wanted more.  When I got home from the visit, my father laughed when I asked him what my aunt had meant by “rich”–and explained that it meant “heavy”. That made no sense either–the tiny sliver was light and delicate. Then he said that once when he was twelve he’d eaten an entire pound of halvah in a single sitting and been extremely sorry afterward, because it sat in his stomach like a lead brick for hours…

I mention these things not just because they’re true of eating halvah, but they’re a good indication of the balance you need to achieve if you ever try making it.

Last year at Rosh Hashanah I made stuffed eggplants and onions with tamarind sauce from Poopa Dweck’s Aromas of Aleppo. I’ve enjoyed them enough to make the onions repeatedly over the past year, and I’ve also enjoyed the idea of making a new food for the New Year. Dweck’s book happens to have a halvah recipe, and the pictures look right, and the recipe looks really simple.

Well…the ingredients are incredibly simple–tehina, sugar, water, lemon juice, flavorings like a little vanilla, clove and cinnamon, maybe some pistachios or sliced almonds to mix in. The steps–boil sugar with a bit of water until it reaches 240°F on a candy thermometer. I don’t have one but she adds, helpfully, that it’s until the syrup coats the back of a spoon and is at the soft ball stage–shades of childhood reading through the Joy of Cooking‘s mysterious and dangerous section on candy recipes. Ahem! Boil the syrup and pour it hot over the tehina in the food processor, add the flavorings and blend. Take out the mass of halvah and press it into a pan to cool, then cut into cubes or slices and store at room temperature for a week or the refrigerator for up to 6 months…not that it will last that long.

Simple, right? So simple. I can probably microwave the syrup in about 2 minutes instead of simmering it for 20 on the stove, at least if I stir every 20-30 seconds and keep checking it…with the food processor handy, it’s like a 10-minute recipe if that! Simple.

The trouble with making halvah at home, as I discovered last week, three times, is that it’s not so simple. The first time I tried a proportionate miniature test version, with half a cup of tehina and about 3/8 cup of sugar, all measured and calculated down to the gram. The syrup cooked in a minute in the microwave and things were going really well…except the mixture seized up hard and crumbly the instant I mixed the syrup and tehina with a fork. And it was a bit too sweet and bland. Did something go wrong with the proportions? Did it need more of the oily tehina to make it flexible?

The second time I made it, the syrup was a little looser and the mixture turned a flat oily dark putty color and never really solidified past a thick paste. Nearly the same exact proportions, better taste (less bland, less cloying, more sesame). But I had made a soft sesame version of peanut butter fudge. You could slice it in squares, but it would sag like soft caramel.

So clearly it’s not that simple. I went to the web, thinking, of course someone will know what I’m doing wrong. And maybe someone does, but he or she is clearly not on the web expounding on the finer points of making halvah.

Oh, there are dissertations on halvah, but most of them are talking about the wide variety of desserts around the world that go by the same name–kinds that are based on wheat flour, carrots, sunflower seeds, and other main ingredients to mix with the syrup and pat into a pan.

Most of the (relatively few) tehina-based recipes are identical to Dweck’s, a pound of tehina, two cups of sugar, 1/3 cup of water, a teaspoon of lemon juice, a pinch of clove and cinnamon, maybe a spoonful of vanilla.

But the pictures show (and sometimes the rueful comments do too) that it’s not the ingredients at fault when the texture’s off. It’s the technique, which is usually missing from the recipe.

The videos I found on YouTube specifically for making tehina-based halvah didn’t really help. Iraqi halvah workers boiling syrup in an old–well, it kind of looks like a very worn-out steel bowl set over a trash can fire in an abandoned stairwell, and they’re stirring away with a wooden paddle before pouring in the tehina, which turns into curds that they then paddle and knead until they’re happy with it, but you can’t really see what it is that makes the difference.

Then there’s the Syrian halvah factory demonstration posted by Middle Eastern chef and cookbook author Anissa Helou–much cleaner, with an official halvah-kneading machine that Willy Wonka might have been proud of, pummeling the tehina/syrup mixture with what looks like a mechanical boxing glove on a stick, until it looks like hummus that’s Continue reading →

Filed under: books, cooking, Desserts, haute cuisine, history, holiday cooking, nuts | Tagged: , , , , , | Comments Off on Homemade Halvah