Easy & Quick Microwave Halwa Recipe

We have a small temple in Reno, where I live currently. Every Sunday the temple is open till noon and we have pooja and bhajans followed by arathi. Devotees bring nivedyam ( food offering to God) prepared from home. We went to temple today and I prepared this halwa as nivedyam. It is a very quick recipe, you just need time for the halwa to set.

Corn flour halwa

Adapted from RaksKitchen

Ingredients

Corn flour - 1/2 cup ( I used Corn Starch 1/4 cup + All purpose flour 1/4 cup )

Sugar - 1 and 1/2 cups

Water - 2 cups

Cardamom powder - a pinch

Food color - half a pinch

Cashews - 10 nos

Ghee - 1 Tbsp

Method

1. Mix all purpose flour, corn starch, food color, sugar and water in a large microwave safe bowl without any lumps. Using a whisk would make this process easier.
2. Microwave in high for 4 minutes. It would still be in liquid consistency. Stir well with a spoon.
3. Microwave again for 2 minutes. Now the mixture would have thickened and would resemble yogurt. Mix well. 
4. Microwave again for 10 minutes*, stirring in between at every 2 minutes interval. Mixing well every two minutes is necessary as it ensures even cooking. 
5. Fry the chopped cashews in ghee till golden brown and mix them well into the above mixture. Mix the cardamom powder in.
6. Use the remaining ghee from the above step to grease a shallow dish.
7. Pour the mixture into this dish and let it cool for an hour or so. 
8. Cut into pieces as desired and serve.

*Cooking time will vary depending on the microwave. I found that doing the step 4 for 10 minutes set the halwa perfectly.

The halwa is soft but not at all oily. I got very good reviews from every one and there were requests for the recipe too. I couldn't take any pictures while I prepared this for nivedyam. I made another batch after coming back from temple for posting the recipe and to take along for the dinner party we are having tonight at a friend's place. This time I cooked it for 10 minutes in step 4 while I had only done for 6 minutes first time I made it. Cooking to 10 minutes helped in solidifying halwa correctly, so it looked beautiful when sliced to square pieces. This can be a life savior if you want to make a quick Indian sweet. No one will know that you made it in less than 20 minutes , unless of course you tell them this recipe.