Name: Black Halwa recipe by Priyanka Bapardekar at BetterButter
Prep time: 120 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 165 min
Yield: 8
Ingredients: 125 gm Raw Rice; Jaggery 350 gm; Fresh grated Coconut 2 cups; Cashewnut pieces 15-20; Powdered cardamom 1tsp; Ghee as required; Water as required

Soak the raw rice in water for at least 2 hours

After 2 hrs keep it in stainer and drain all water

Grind this drained rice into mixer to make very fine powder

Take jaggery into a heavy bottomed vessel, add half cup water and heat till jaggery melts. When jaggery starts to boil, switch off the gas.

Let the syrup cool down.

Add warm water into grated coconut and just turn for a minute in mixer. Then extract milk from coconut in a vessel. Thus take 2 cups coconut milk.

Now in a large heavy bottomed vessel add rice powder, jaggery syrup and coconut milk. Mix well with hand. Break the lumps if any.

Put on the gas and start stirring the mixture on medium flame.

Don't increase the gas flame. Stir continuously the mixture on a very low flame ( simmer ). It will slowly start thickening. Add cashew nut pieces and cardamom powder.

It will take a lot of time to get thick. Whenever you find it thickening add a tablespoon of ghee to the mixture. It will ease stirring.

Keep stirring. Whenever the mixture thickens too much, add ghee.

Keep stirring till halwa starts leaving the sides of pan and mixture starts rolling.

It took me 45 minutes to complete this process. At this stage halwa starts leaving the sides of pan and ghee separates. When you take a tbsp of halwa, it should not stick and you should be able to roll it into ball.