Wheat Halwa | Godhumai Halwa | From Wheat Flour | Stepwise Pics

This dish has been on my to do list for a long long time from the last diwali, but some how I never got to make it. I always thought that this was a long complicated process as the traditional method involves soaking and grinding the whole wheat grains hence I never got to it. But then the other day when I was speaking to my mother, she said there is a shortcut method my making from the wheat flour. So I thought, why not give that method a shot! And I finally gave it a try yesterday and it turned out to be delicious, just as good as the traditional method!

There are two methods in which I tried the Halwa  - stirring the wheat milk in a non stick pan and pressure cooking the wheat milk.
The pressure cooker method is easier as we don not have to stand and continuously stir for a long time. Both the methods are given below.
The end result tasted the same in both the methods.

Ingredients Required:

Wheat Flour - 1 cup, heaped

Sugar - 2 cups

Cardamon Powder - 1 tsp

Orange Food Color - 1/4 tsp (optional)

Ghee - 5 tbsp

For Garnishing - Chopped nuts

How to make?

Take the flour in a mixing bowl, add water as required and knead into a dough as we do for roti.

Add 4 - 5 cups of water till the dough is immersed in water and set aside for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, you would see a white covering on the dough, gently with your hands knead the dough so the wheat milk separates from the gluten.

For this dish, we have to extract all the wheat milk and discard the gluten.

Use a strainer and strain the milk into a heavy bottom pan (preferably non stick).

Add another cup of water to the left over wheat gluten and knead once more to remove any remaining wheat milk.

Use the strainer and add this to the pan.

Heat the pan on a medium heat and start stirring. 

After 10 minutes, add the sugar, cardamon and food coloring (mix food color in little water and add).

Keep on stirring and add ghee in regular interval of time.

From now on its only stirring, stirring and stirring! This would take about 45 minutes on medium heat to cook well, leave the sides and form a ball.

Once it leaves the sides, the halwa is ready.

 

Grease a plate with ghee and pour the halwa. Garnish on top with nuts.

Let this cool for 30 minutes so it would be easier to slice into pieces, else we can enjoy as it is!

Pressure Cooker Method:
After extracting the wheat milk, add the food color and the sugar.
Stir well and pour the mixture in a large vessel.
Place it in a pressure cooker with lots of water as it needs to cook on low heat for a long time.
Place the weight, and after the first whistle comes, cook on low heat for 45 minutes.
Open the cooker after the pressure drops and beat thoroughly with a hand blender or a wooden spatula.
In a non stick pan, add ghee and nuts and add this beaten mixture.
Stir continuously, and the halwa would thicken in 10 minutes.
Serve hot!