Omani Halwa

Omani halwa (حلوى عمانية) is a sweet made by cooking sugar, starch and ghee with water while stirring constantly, then adding ingredients such as rose water, cardamom, saffron and nuts. In its container, the surface is glossy, and a spoonful reveals a dense, sticky interior. Unlike crumbly halva made from ground sesame, this sweet gets its dense, sticky body from starch.

In Oman, it is one of the essential sweets served with coffee when welcoming guests. Dates and halwa accompany qahwa, a strongly aromatic coffee drunk in small amounts. Serving halwa, with its intense sweetness and richness in fat, together with a bitter drink shows clearly how this sweet is eaten.

A Sweet Given in Its Container

Halwa is not served or given as pieces in a bag. It is packed in a container. Ceramic, wooden, plastic and other containers are used, and some are made for special occasions. The container is not just a box for carrying the sweet. It is also how the sticky sweet is brought to the table as it is.

During Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of the fast, demand rises for halwa to serve to guests and to give to relatives and friends. Families pass down recipes and techniques and make halwa in their shops, and this work is connected with the custom of welcoming guests at home. However, the name “halwa” is used for different sweets across a wide area. The age of the name alone cannot establish when Oman’s starch-based halwa came into being.

A traveler who visited a sweet shop in Muscat in 2019 wrote about tasting halwa in different flavors, such as honey, rose water and saffron, and about being served Arabic coffee at the shop. Visitors can also try small amounts of these hospitality flavors at the shop and choose among them. At the Oman Pavilion of the World Expo, “halwa mochi,” halwa wrapped in mochi, was also served with qahwa.

Trade and Celebrations in Travel Records

A 19th-century travel account introduced by a researcher of Omani history records a trade in which halwa was packed into shallow ceramic vessels and shipped to India and Iran. A record by an official who worked in Oman in the late 19th century also notes that halwa from Nizwa and halwa from Muscat differed in taste. However, today’s distinction between dark and light halwa cannot simply be matched to those two towns as they were then. A traveler who described a wedding in Muscat in 1937 recorded that halwa and coffee were served after the marriage ceremony. These records trace the history of gift-giving and hospitality, but they alone do not show when today’s starch-based recipe became established.

The Stickiness Created by Starch

Halwa is made by adding starch to a sugar solution and heating it while stirring continuously. With water and heat, the starch swells and the whole liquid thickens. Ghee is then added and worked in until the mixture becomes dense and jelly-like. This differs both from sweets in which flour is baked until crumbly and from sweets set by chilling with gelatin.

Ghee, the fat used in making halwa, is obtained by removing the water and milk solids from butter. It does more than add aroma. It is an ingredient incorporated into a sweet made by working starch and sugar together. Nuts are used to decorate the surface of the finished halwa, and they are sometimes mixed in as well. Pieces of almonds, walnuts and other nuts add a different texture to the uniformly sticky mass.

An artisan working halwa in a large cauldron and a home cook following a recipe (the proportions of ingredients and the method) in a small pot use different quantities and heating conditions. Producers make their own judgments about the formulation and how far to cook the mixture down. Even with the same listed ingredients, the product changes depending on the amount of fat and the type of sugar. Simply mixing the ingredients and letting them cool does not give every product the same stickiness.

Making Omani halwa in a large pot. The sticky sweet is being worked. Photo: Mazinalkhuasibi-1414, 2021-02-02, location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Reduced-size version from the hosting source, with no additional editing.

Differences in Color and Local Aromas

Omani halwa ranges in color from pale to brown. Even halwa called “black halwa” actually ranges from light brown to dark brown. Versions made with dates and versions scented with frankincense are also sold, and the color and flavor change depending on the sugar and aromatics chosen. A dark color alone does not identify any one specific ingredient.

In Oman, the fragrance of Jabal Akhdar, a rose-water-producing area, is also used in sweets. In the mountains, families still pick roses in spring and distill the flowers into rose water. The rose water is used not only in halwa but also in the coffee served to guests.

Some of the mountain rose water covered by a local newspaper picks up a toasty, smoky aroma while the flowers are heated, and it is used in making halwa. Rose water itself does not have just one aroma. Floral aroma, combined with saffron and cardamom, adds layers of fragrance to the strong taste of fat and sugar. The modern producer Al Khanjar describes its use of Omani red sugar, starch, rose water, ghee made from milk and other selected ingredients, as well as its production in copper pots, as distinctive features of the company. This is an example of how one workshop chooses its ingredients and equipment. It is not a standard that requires the same conditions for all halwa.

Omani halwa photographed at Souq Mutrah in Muscat. Nuts are visible inside and on top of the brown sweet in its container. Photo: Riyadh Al Balushi / CC BY 2.0, photographer’s public page. Unedited except for the size provided by the host.

Glossary