Sohan Halwa -- A Persian sweet for a Sweet New Year!

Welcome to 2019!  This is the beginning of my EIGHTH year of blogging about historical cooking.  I am astonished that I have been able to do this and keep it going.  It has been fun, intriguing, and educational, but most of all it has been a source of pleasure to meet people who like to cook historical recipes, too.

For the record, this is my 167th post and my blog has had over 64,000 page views from people around the world.  I am honored they have read my work and hope they have benefited from it.

I decided 2019 needs to be a sweet year, so I chose a sweet recipe to help kick the year off right!

My friend M is a lovely Persian woman who is also smart, pleasant, and very kind.  Occasionally we have a chance to talk about food and its preparation, and it is fun to see what sorts of recipes she has been preparing for her family.

One day she showed me a picture of some Persian sweets she had made.  Impressive!  Beautiful!  They looked like a professional confectioner had made them.  One in particular was pink and shaped like roses.  M told me they were called "Sohan Halwa" and they were the soft kind.

I knew the word "halwa" or "halva" as a confection made from ground sesame seeds and I have tried several flavor varieties, and liked them.  But this was different:  Instead of sesame, it was made from wheat flour and there was a very specific way to treat the flour that I had never tried.

So M dictated to me the ingredients she uses and the method she follows.  I tried it once and brought her the results; I was glad I had because I had not gotten the flour cooking method right.  M was able to help me understand what I needed to change.  I tried it again and she declared it, "Just right!"

Here is the recipe she shared with me:

Sohan Halwa

200 grams white wheat flour
90 grams butter, softened
200 grams powdered sugar
4 tablespoons rose water
2 tablespoons rose powder
1 drop of food coloring

You can see the rose powder in one bag and the whole rose petals in another

Put the flour in a dry, shallow frying pan over medium heat.  Set the timer for 5 minutes and cook the flour while stirring it continuously.  The flour should change color but only to the palest ivory color.  The goal is to get the flour hot and to cook out the raw flavor, but not let it get browned at all.

Barely off-white, but very warm

Put the cooked flour in a bowl and add the rest of the ingredients.  Stir well or, if it is cool enough,  mix with your hands, until you have a uniformly mixed, soft, pink ball of dough.

This was the first correct attempt.

Press the dough into a buttered pan or individual molds.  M bought a set of rose-shaped molds and was very pleased with the result.

Put the pan or molds into the refrigerator to chill.  After it is firm, cut the slab into small pieces and serve.

My Notes

I chose unsalted butter and red food coloring.  Also, I weighed the flour, sugar, and butter before I started the cooking process.

M had given me the bag of powdered roses and the bag of whole rose petals; later I found an online source for food-grade dried roses so I could make my own powder.  It was simple to put the petals into my (never-for-coffee-beans) coffee grinder and turn them to powder.

After the dough has formed -- all the ingredients came together easily and quickly, and the butter didn't melt as much as got softer -- I used my hands to push it into the buttered pan.  After it had been pushed over most of the pan, I put a sheet of waxed paper over the top and used a glass to roll the dough to an even thickness and smooth the surface.  My fingers were just the right tool to push the dough down on the edges of the dough to help keep them uniform, too.

This is the first correct attempt.

Then I used a knife to score (not cut all the way through) lines on the surface to show the pieces.  I used a tiny appetizer fork to press a design into each piece.

Second correct attempt.  Less coloring and smaller piece size.

After that, I covered it and put it into the refrigerator to chill.  The next day (but several hours would have worked, I think), I popped it from the pan and cut it into pieces.


The Verdict

I made this correctly twice.  The first time was just as M had instructed me to do.  She tasted it and declared that it was exactly what she expected.  Hooray!  I loved the strong rose flavor and the creamy texture and the sweetness.

Success!  It was good!  The only part that I would change is cutting it into smaller pieces.  It is rich enough that a small piece would have been better.  Perhaps about 1 inch x 1 inch in size.

But there was a part that my other guest tasters (many of them) wanted to change:  the strength of the rose flavoring.  People who are not accustomed to it found it too strong.  The scent gets to your nose first and your taste buds next, and some people were put off by just the scent.  Others were willing to try it (they liked the scent) but the taste was too much.

So I tried it again, and this time I used 2 tablespoons rose water and 2 tablespoons water.  This gave me the same result for texture but a lighter rose scent, which people liked much better.  One guest taster said she could taste the sweet and the butter more that way.

My advice to you is to know your audience.  If they already like the rose flavoring, as I do, then use the full strength.  If not, back it off a little or a lot to help them appreciate it before they even take a bite.

My thanks goes to the lovely M for sharing this recipe and for giving me the dried roses.

And I wish you all a Happy New Year!