The Making of Badam Halwa

Badam = Almonds. Halwa = Gooey Sweet. Diwali is a special time for us in our family. My dear mom was born on Diwali day in the year 1927.

I could not take her out on her birthday as there was office work to attend to. But I did manage to make the badam halwa day before yesterday. Well the process was the same. Only I wanted the sugar to be light so instead of 1:1:2 of Paste-of-Soaked-Almond-Ground-with-Milk:Ghee:Sugar I made it with the same ingredients but in 1:1:1 ratios.

It turned out to the right gooey consistency so I offered the first spoon to God and the same one to my mom for tasting. She pronounced the result which made my smile turn to a sour expression :( It was not sweet enough. I had no time to redo it as I was rushing off to office.

Yesterday before going to office I wanted to rectify the sweet, so added 1 more measure of sugar and had the whole thing going on fire again. The best thing with halwa is that you can put it back on fire and stir until you get it right even if you made a mistake the first time around!

This time it passed my mom's taste test. I was glad my mom did not want to compromise with lesser sweet in our traditional sweets like the badam halwa.

The wheat halwa is one of my all-time favorites. Its called the Tirunelveli halwa too. This has to be made with 1:1:3 of Milk-of-Wheat:Ghee:Sugar! This one is such an addictive sweet that you tend to have spoon after spoon of wheat halwa before you even realize you have had too much of it. Your teeth ache from it more so if one has cavities yet you want to go on eating it. The taste of sugar, wheat and clarified butter make it taste so very divine.

Cheers.

Mahalakshmi.