Greek Halva Recipe | Greek Dessert which is also dairy free pudding! | TheoCooks (2024)

9th April 2015

I’ve slightly adapted my Greek Halva recipe which is a dairy free pudding, in this to include lots of crushed walnuts which I think adds a little extra texture and flavour to the Greek Halva and besides the crunch this is also a dairy free pudding which is great!

In saying that, if you like walnuts you gotta try my other Greek dessert recipe.. Sweet, sticky and dairy free! Super easy to make and a delicious sweet bite that’s great to have around the house (if it lasts long enough)!

Anyway, want to know a fabulous Greek Halva recipe (dairy free pudding)? Well here it is!

There are a lot of Greek desserts that follow a similar path of cooking; something that seems to be quite dense (most likely the use of semolina opposed to flour in many of the Greek desserts) and then drowned in a deliciously sweet syrup of some kind. My Greek Walnut cake (karidopita) or my Greek semolina cake also known Kalo brama are typical examples of Greek desserts that fit that profile and are extremely moreish…

I’ll run through the general rules of making Greek Halva and you can find the proper Greek halva recipe at the bottom of this post.

Greek Halva Recipe (dairy free pudding):

Ingredients – filling:

1/2 cup olive oil

1 cup semolina

18 walnut halves crushed quite fine

Syrup:

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup honey

3 cups water

3 cinnamon sticks

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

5 cloves

Pinch of salt

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Greek Halva Recipe Method:

Start with the syrup; add all the ingredients together with boiling water and pop into a saucepan on the stove bring to a light simmer and don’t touch it.

Don’t stir it, don’t even look at it – it’s very self conscience this syrup and will go grainy at the mere thought that someone has stuck a spoon in it!

While your syrup is discretely warming through make your filling.

Add the olive oil to a saucepan and get hot enough that when you drop a few grains of semolina into it they start to fry on the surface. Pour in all the semolina and stir it.

The filling is not self-conscience and is in fact an extrovert that demands constant attention! Keep stirring…

Keep stirring for about 5-10 minutes until it starts to turn colour, add the crushedwalnuts and keep stirring until you get a nice deep golden colour (don’t let it burn it will go bitter).

Remove from the heat and let it cool for a few moments.

This is the bit to be careful with. Slowly start to pour in all the syrup. Did I say be careful? Because it is hot, surface-of-the-sun hot, hot like flowing lava from a volcano! It will bubble but let it settle for a moment and start stirring.

Keep stirring for about 25 minutes and it will suddenly start to thicken. Keep going and don’t stop – you want this really thick, to the point your hand hurts and when you push the spoon around the mixture stays put.

Once you’ve reached a point that it is super thick let it cool and pour into a dish (or moulds) and leave to cool for a few hours. If you want pretty ones like in my picture; I poured the halva mixture into a baking tray and used a pastry cutter to cut out little portions.

You can sprinkle some chopped nuts on top or even a tiny little pinch of sea salt flakes.

Goes well with a decent Greek coffee (or an espresso if you must)!