Holvaytar

Holvaytar (also Halvaitar) is a Central Asian sweet made by toasting wheat flour in fat, then adding a separately prepared sugar syrup and cooking it. In Uzbekistan it is served on a plate as a soft, deep reddish-brown paste and eaten with bread. Tajikistan’s halvoi tar (Ҳалвои тар) also has a form that is cut into squares or diamonds once it has cooled. From nearly liquid versions to ones that are cut into pieces, the way the flour and syrup are combined changes the form of the confection.

Toast the flour before adding the sweet liquid

The heart of the method is heating the flour thoroughly in fat. Wheat flour is added to hot fat and toasted, kept moving so it does not burn, until it turns brown. Then the syrup is poured in, and the mixture is stirred further and cooked. The order differs from that of a porridge, in which flour, water and sugar are cooked together from the start.

The flour-toasting stage creates color and aroma. After the syrup is added, the mixture is cooked until the flour absorbs the liquid and the whole becomes thick and uniform. Through these two stages, the flour is first given a toasty aroma and then finished as a sweet paste.

In Uzbekistan, methods using vegetable oil are well known, while Tajikistan has forms that use clarified butter or sheep’s tail fat. The fat is both the medium for toasting the flour and part of the aroma of the finished confection. Even with the same flour and sugar, changing the fat brings out flavors close to the local cuisine.

Served soft, or cooled and cut

In the form passed down in Tajikistan’s Hisor and Rasht valleys, wheat flour is toasted until it turns a color like that of dates, combined with syrup and transferred to a fairly deep dish. Once cool, it is cut into bite-sized squares or diamonds and sprinkled with pistachios, walnuts, almonds or other nuts. In another method, the nuts are mixed in before finishing.

Uzbek holvaytar, on the other hand, is brought to the table while still soft, just as it was poured onto the plate. Halvaytar, a similar Kyrgyz confection, is sometimes made by varying the amount of water to adjust its thickness and served with bread while still warm. These differ not only in the spelling of their names but also in how they are served: set in the dish and cut, or served soft.

The 1969 Tajik confectionery book lists separately a version made with honey and a version made with bekmes, a concentrated grape juice. For the honey version, honey and water are added to the toasted flour and cooked. For the bekmes version, the mixture with the concentrated juice added is spooned onto small plates, its surface is patterned with a spoon or similar utensil, and chopped pistachios or walnuts are sprinkled over it. When sweeteners other than sugar are used, the aroma of fruit or honey is layered over the sweetness. Rather than defining holvaytar by a single fixed color or firmness, it is easier to understand its various local forms by viewing it through the method of combining toasted flour with a sweet liquid.

A sweet prepared for memorial gatherings

In Uzbekistan, holvaytar is associated with funerals and religious gatherings, and in some households it is also made on Thursdays in remembrance of the deceased. An ethnography of ritual foods in Surkhandarya records that this confection was quietly made at the very beginning of mourning and, in that area, shared among women. The same record also associates this sweet with the wish that the soul of the deceased may pass through the trials of the afterlife. This practice is a local record. In the same area, holvaytar is also made for Nawruz, Ramadan and the Festival of Sacrifice. It is not limited to mourning; it is also a sweet prepared according to the local calendar.

Turkey, too, has un helvası, made by toasting flour in fat and combining it with a sweet liquid. In Uşak it is described as an indispensable confection at weddings, and in Kütahya a custom has been recorded of putting warm helva in bread and handing it out to people paying condolence visits after a funeral. Depending on the place, sweets made from toasted flour appear at different occasions, both celebratory and mournful.

The large family of confections known as halva also includes ones that use sesame paste to make a brittle block. Unlike those sesame confections, holvaytar is based on wheat flour toasted in a pot. It is a soft dish served with tea and bread.

The sequence of toasting the flour and then adding the sweet liquid, and two finished results from different example proportions. Original diagram by Sweetlore. The vessels and sizes are represented conceptually.

Glossary