Wheat Halwa - Wheat flour pudding

I have a weakness for halwa - any sort of halwa.  Halwa is a sweet glutinous, transluscent, jelly like concoction that is full of calories and very tasty.  Every time I visit India and come back, I make sure I carry back at least 250 grams of this sweet dish - and I savour a spoonful every day after dinner for another three months, thinking of my holiday.

For the last week or so, a dear friend of mine, Cholena Nashan, fabulous cook, photographer and artist, has been taunting me with these pictures of the halwa she was making at home.  Finally, I had to give in and here is my halwa that I am now enjoying with a cup of tea.

According to Cholena, all you need is a hell of a lot of patience and I will add to it and say - and some muscle power to make this dish.
Thank you to Hebbar's kitchen for the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 cup atta flour (wheat flour)
enough water to knead it to a smooth dough

4 cups of water

11/2 cups of sugar

1/4 cup sugar for caramalizing - prepare by adding a couple of tablespoons of water and boiling on a low flame till you get desired golden hue.

1/2 cup ghee

10-12 broken cashewnuts
1/4 teaspoon cardamom powder

1 greased cake tin - 7 inches x 7 inches - please grease using ghee.

Method:

Make dough with 1 cup atta flour.  In a large pot, keep the dough, flatten it a bit and add 4 cups of water.  Leave to rest over night.

The next morning, knead the dough and squeeze the milk out of the dough.  when you are finished you will get a handful of glutinous mass.  You can throw that out.  Sieve the milk twice - one with a larger sieve to get rid of any glutinous mass and the second time with a finer sieve to get rid of any wheat husk.  Keep the milk aside.

In a nonstick saucepan, heat 1/2  a teaspoon of ghee, roast the cashewnuts and set aside.  Into the same pan, pour the atta milk and start cooking.  Once you start cooking, you just cannot let go of your wooden spoon - it is going to take a minimum of one hour of constant stirring.  Remember that.

When the consistency thickens, add the caramel you have prepared from the 1/4 cup sugar to the mix.

Add 1/4 cup ghee and keep stirring constantly.  From here on in, all you do is keep stirring and adding a table spoon of ghee every now and again - I added ghee 4 times after the first 1/4 cup.  

At some point you will notice that the flour starts to coagulate and it also starts to release the ghee that you had put in.

Now add the cashewnuts.

Keep stirring until the whole things becomes one mass - at this point add the cardamom powder.  Keep stirring.

When the colour is deep and the mass is literally swimming in ghee pour into your greased mould and flatten it using your wooden spoon.

Wait for 2 hours till it cools down.  Cut and serve!

This will keep me happy for the next 3 months - at least!