Since it's festival time and I have kept golu, I got a huge number of fruits by the guests. Some banana were frozen and made milkshake with bournvita, some ate as such and still had loads of banana to finish. One bunch of Dole long variety banana was getting over ripen. So I was thinking of trying some sweet. I recently saw banana halwa from Divya's cookbook. It was kerala style banana halwa with nendran banana with simply sugar and ghee. I knew the same method could be adapted to prepare with regular banana too. Though there are various methods to prepare banana halwa, the one she shared was really easy method as well as tempting. So decided to try it out. I was not even very confident as the measurement were given in weight whereas I added in cup measurements roughly. Also I used jaggery in place of sugar. So was skeptical about the result.
With jaggery and cardamom, there was no trace of banana flavour over powering the halwa. It was really good. I was so tempted to use coconut oil for preparing the halwa somehow, but first time did not want to test.
I am sure many of you will love this recipe both because of its simplicity as well as the way banana's put in use.
Banana halwa recipe
Recipe Cuisine: Indian | Recipe Category: SweetsPrep Time: 5 mins | Cook time: 25 mins | Serves: 6 | Author: Raks anand
Click here for cup measurements
Banana halwa with simple ingredients available at home. Learn how to make banana halwa step by step pictures and detailed method.
Ingredients
Banana, long variety - 5Jaggery, crushed - 1 & 1/4 cup
Sugar, unrefined - 1/4 cup
Lemon juice - 1 tsp
Ghee - 4 tbsp
Cashew nuts - 10
Cardamom - 1, powdered
Method:
- Peel banana and puree it in a blender. I got 2 & 1/4 cups.
- In a heavy bottomed vessel, heat banana puree with jaggery, sugar.
- Once it starts boiling, add lemon juice. This gives a nice taste as well as prevents turning burfi.
- Once it turns glossy, start adding ghee one tbsp at a time.
- Let the mixture thicken. First it starts to leave sides.
- As you keep cooking and add ghee, at one stage, you will see whitish frothy here and there while you stir from bottom.
- Add powdered cardamom, chopped cashew nuts and mix.
- At one stage at many places in the mixture starts turning pale, slightly frothy.
- Pour to a greased serving bowl. I poured to a plate.
- I used unrefined demerara sugar. If using white sugar, just 2- 3 tbsp is enough.
- Sugar is used for more glossy effect.
- Regulate the heat so that the mixture is not always cooked in high heat.
- If over cooked, it will become hard chewy like candy.
- You can add roasted cashew nuts too. I liked raw cashews.
- You can add more ghee if you want. extra 1 or 2 tbsp.
- If too gooey even after cooling down, you can again reheat and add ghee to make it more glossy and non sticky.
How to make Banana halwa step by step:
- Peel banana and puree it in a blender. I got 2 & 1/4 cups.
- In a heavy bottomed vessel, heat banana puree with jaggery, sugar.
- Once it starts boiling, add lemon juice. This gives a nice taste as well as prevents turning burfi. Once it turns glossy, start adding ghee one tbsp at a time.
- Let the mixture thicken. First it starts to leave sides. As you keep cooking and add ghee, at one stage, you will see whitish frothy here and there while you stir from bottom. Add powdered cardamom, chopped cashew nuts and mix.
- At one stage at many places in the mixture starts turning pale, slightly frothy. Pour to a greased serving bowl.
Use spoon dipped in ghee to scoop for easy serving.
