Raw Sesame Halva

I love halva, the Middle Eastern dessert made from sesame seeds. I’m not even sure how they make it but I decided to make my own healthy, raw version. Actually I was going to see if I could make raw tahini with my blender because I’ve not been able to find a raw tahini here in NZ. My blender ground the sesame seeds really well, but I was having a bit of a sweet craving and I ended up abandoning my tahini experiment in favor of raw halva. I didn’t regret it, it really hit that sweet spot!

This isn’t an exact recipe, but it’s such a simple recipe with so few ingredients that if you just let your taste buds guide you and you can’t go wrong.

Ingredients:

Sesame seeds (raw)
Honey or agave syrup
Vanilla extract
Dash of Himalayan sea salt

Instructions:

Make sure your blender is really dry before you start. If there’s any moisture the sesame seeds aren’t going to grind up so well.

Pour sesame seeds into the blender and grind them to a fine meal. Stop frequently and using a spatula scrap down the sides, and fluff up the meal and seeds that will end up underneath the blades at the bottom of the blender jug, then continue blending. Do this until you have ground all of the sesame seeds.

Pour the sesame meal into a bowl. Add honey to taste and enough to form a dough. Add a dash of Himalayan sea salt, not enough to make it salty, but the salt will bring out the other flavors. Add vanilla extract to taste. I used about a cup of  sesame seeds and 1/4 teas of vanilla extract. You don’t need much. Mix by hand until all the ingredients are thoroughly blended together.

Pinch off a little bit of the dough and roll them between the palms of your hands into little balls. I made mine very tiny, about a heaping 1/2 teas worth of dough. They probably came out about the size of cooked chickpeas. They were the perfect size. Even though it’s raw, this is a very concentrated food, so you don’t want to eat too much at a time.

Keeps well in the fridge. In fact I think it’s even nicer the next day after it’s been sitting in the fridge, it seems to bring out the flavor.

Variations:

• Add ground cinnamon to the sesame meal. It adds a nice, subtle flavor.
• Add some raw cacao powder to the mix, or roll your halva balls in raw cacao powder to give them just a hint of chocolate flavor.

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