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Good morning my friends, one of my favorite traditional Greek desserts today from a place in Greece we call farsala
Let’s do it together

Ingredients

4 cups sugar (very fine crystalline)
4 cups water
2 cups you or corn flour (cut)
3/4 cup sunflower oil or milk butter melted and cold (out of fasting period)
1 cup almond kernels (whole blanched almonds)
vanilla or cinnamon optional for aroma

Preparation

First we roast the almonds.
Place the unpeeled almonds in a pan.
Bake in the air in a preheated oven at 200 ° C, on the middle oven rack for about 10 minutes until lightly browned.
During the cooking, stir so that the almonds are cooked evenly.
We leave them aside.
For execution
For Farsala halva before we start, we keep 1 cup. sugar for the candy and a half cups. sugar for its finish.

In a bowl, pour the remaining sugar (2.5 cups) and stir.
Add the water and the oil (or the melted pure butter) and mix the ingredients very well at the beginning with a spoon so that the starch melts well at the base of the bowl.
Then with a whisk, stir for 2-3 minutes to smooth the mixture of liquid materials.
If you add cinnamon or vanilla you will add it at this stage.
We make the candy with the sugar that we kept at the beginning.
In a deep saucepan with a thick base, pour 1 cup. sugar gradually and over medium heat.
Allow the sugar to melt into caramel, stirring whenever necessary, with an oiled wooden spoon.
When the sugar melts evenly and turns into candy, then carefully add the liquid ingredients with the fat.
When we add the liquids to the caramel, because its temperature drops, it freezes and stabilizes.
However, with its constant stirring in the fire, it will take its liquid form again and will dissolve.
Stir the Farsala halva again and again in the pot, always over medium heat until all the liquids are absorbed and it comes off the walls of the pot.
Remove from the heat and continue stirring for a few minutes, until the oil that peaks on its surface disappears completely.
Finally, after the Farsala halva is homogenized and smooth, then add the roasted almonds and gently stir to go everywhere.
We will use a shallow pan, about 32 or 34 cm.
The mixture should not be high, in order to caramelize its surface nicely.
Pour the hot mixture into the pan.
Shake the pan so that it spreads and flattens its surface.
Leave the homemade halva of Farsala to cool.
Sprinkle with the remaining fine sugar (1/2 cup), the entire surface of the mixture.
Burn the sugar with a flame to caramelize.
Alternatively, bake on the grill for a few minutes, placing the cake on the top rack of the oven, until the sugar has melted and caramelized.
Farsala halva is cut into pieces after it has cooled well.

Stay safe and healthy my friends and take care of your people

My best wishes from Greece