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As part of my ongoing campaign to help my husband put on weight, I bought a box of pistachio halvah last week, and in a superhuman effort of will, did not eat a single bite.
Before going any further, let’s talk cost. Halvah is a Middle Eastern confection now manufactured worldwide. In fact, if you are skilled with a candy thermometer and confident around boiling pots of sugar, you can make halvah in your very own kitchen. The internet is full of recipes.
If the thought of boiling sugar strikes terror in your heart, fear not. Inexpensive, decent commercial halvah is widely available. For the record, one pound/454 grams of Cortas brand halvah set me back $7 American. (I am not being compensated in any way. This was a random purchase I will repeat.) Cortas also sells plain halvah, that is, without nuts, for $6. As halvah is extremely rich, a little goes a long way, even if you adore the stuff. Having said this, cheaper halvah is out there, and works perfectly well in this recipe.
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Into the kitchen.
The first batch of halvah muffins contained pistachios. I know: hardly a budget item. I will explain.
Many centuries ago, before John got sick and several people we knew died, including two close friends, our gardener, and both my parents (2023-4 were banner years, let me tell you), I bought some pistachios. Most were eaten. I froze the leftover nuts and promptly forgot about them.
Then this recipe came along and I remembered the pistachios. The end.
Feel free to use whatever nuts you have to hand–I used walnuts the next time around–or eliminate them entirely.
Let us chat about sugar. I think halvah muffins are best with brown sugar, but I am not God. Use white sugar if you prefer, or a mixture of brown and white. I will not be conducting inspections.
The same applies to dairy. Sour cream, creme fraiche, and heavy cream give a richer muffin, but milk–from full-fat to skim–is fine. If you use skim or 2% milk, the muffins will be drier in texture and have a shorter keeping time.
A freshly opened package of sour cream. It looks like a new planet. Or maybe I have problems.
You also have a choice about muffin structure. The halvah is crumbled together with brown sugar and cinnamon. This mixture may be stirred through the muffin batter or spooned into the middle as a filling. The recipe gives instructions for both options.
Stirring the halvah/brown sugar mixture through the batter distributes the halvah flavoring. It also creates a neater looking muffin. Not that either of these muffins are insta-beauties. This is brown food at its very brownest.
Note all those home-baker drips.
Treating the halvah/brown sugar mix as a filling gives the finished muffin a streusel-like texture. The halvah/brown sugar mixture forms delicious crumbles on the muffin’s surface. A few will fall from the pan to the cooling rack, forcing you to taste test.
Any extra muffin batter may be spooned into another muffin pan–should you have one–and baked. Filling the empty muffin wells with water will ensure even baking.
You can also spoon leftover batter into a small baking pan or molds and bake accordingly, as I did here.
Finally, halvah muffin batter may be baked as a cake in a nine-inch cake or pie pan. See recipe notes, below.
Whatever you do, remember muffins are part of the large family of baked goods called quick breads, meaning they rely on baking powder and/or baking soda for leavening rather than yeast. Hence the “quick:” where yeast-raised baked goods need time to rise, quick breads are stirred together and baked immediately.
Further, quick breads are flexible affairs. Unlike cakes, cookies, or confectionery, quick breads are amenable to substitutions. The recipe calls for whole milk and you only have cream? No problem. You want to toss in a handful of raisins? Go for it. You want to try different flours? Fine. Please keep this in mind when baking halvah muffins.
Halvah Muffins
yield: 12-18 muffins
Preparation time: 10-15 minutes to assemble, 15-20 minutes baking time.
Please see notes, below, for discussion of substitutions and muffin cake recipe.
1 stick/8 tablespoons/4 ounces/113 grams sweet butter
For the halvah filling:
In a medium bowl:
scant 2 ounces/45-50 grams walnuts
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 ounces/60 grams halvah
For the muffin batter:
In a large bowl: the dry ingredients
1 3/4 cups/220 grams AP Flour
1/2 teaspoon fine sea or table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
In a second bowl: the wet ingredients
1/4 cup/60 grams brown sugar, lightly packed
2 large eggs
1 cup/8 ounces/227 ml sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
(the melted butter goes into this bowl)
Preheat the oven to 375F/190C.
Prepare a 12-well muffin tin for baking: either butter lavishly, spray with cooking spray, or line with muffin papers.
Melt the butter. I put it in a Pyrex measuring cup and microwave it in 10-second bursts. Once the butter is melted, the cup sits on the stove, where it won’t congeal.
Make the halvah filling:
Prepare the nuts, if using: shell and break apart, if necessary. Toasting nuts adds a layer of flavor; I skipped this step, but if you want to add flavor, toast your nuts in a small pan over medium low heat. Watch carefully, as nuts go from toasted to burnt in seconds.
If nuts are warm, allow them to cool before adding them to bowl, below.
Add the nuts, cinnamon, and brown sugar to the small bowl. Crumble halvah into bowl. I find clean fingers are best for the job, but a fork or small whisk also works.
If your brown sugar is clumping, give it a few turns in the microwave. Be careful–it can get very hot.
Make the muffin batter:
In the dry bowl:
Add the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Whisk or fork together to blend.
In the wet bowl:
Add the sugar, eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract. Stir to just blend. Add the melted butter. Stir to blend.
Scrape the contents of the wet bowl into the dry bowl and mix until just blended. Do not overmix. A few lumps are fine.
Now you decide whether to stir the halvah filling through the batter or to fill the muffins.
To stir, tip the filling into the bowl and just mix through the batter.
To fill the muffins:
Spoon batter into wells so each is just under half-full. Add a generous teaspoon of filling to each well. Cover filling so each well is roughly 2/3 full. Overfilling the wells may result in uneven baking or batter escaping the muffin pan. This happened to me, and it wasn’t pretty.
Any leftover muffin batter/filling may be baked in a second muffin pan, if you have one. Fill empty muffin wells with water so muffins bake evenly.
You can also butter a small pan or mold(s) and bake the remaining batter that way. See post, above, for an example.
Bake muffins 15-25 minutes. They are done when a tester comes out clean.
Cool halvah muffins completely on a rack before turning out.
Halvah muffins keep at room temperature in an airtight tin or sealed bag up to four days. After that, refrigerate them up to three days. Freeze up to three months.
Notes:
Use any nut you like, or none at all.
The dairy element is flexible, too. Use creme fraiche, heavy cream, or milk. If you use skim or 2% milk, the muffins will have a drier texture and won’t keep as long.
You can add more sugar to the muffin batter. I would not recommend going below 1/4 cup/60grams. Less than that and both flavor and texture suffer.
As noted in the post, the muffin batter can be baked in a buttered 9-inch/22-cm pie or cake pan. I use Pyrex glass pie pans. Turn the oven down to 350F/180C. Baking time will be 30-35 minutes.
Thank you for reading.
