A mellow golden light hangs over Bangalore in winter, one that makes you want to sit out on balconies and roof-tops with friends and family eating hot gajar halwa and drinking cups of steaming ginger tea.

So I made gajar halwa today for the first time. I cannot claim credit for the recipe which I got from here – I followed it almost to the letter, with exactly half of all the ingredients. But with one notable exception – which gave it that special taste that Mummy always manages to give it making hers the world’s tastiest gajar halwa!

Since the recipe is available to all, I’m only making a note here of the exceptions:

• I used the red, juicy, sweetish carrots (I like to think of them as ‘winter’ carrots) instead of the brighter, orange, not-necessarily-sweet carrots you get in summer and most other times.
• Instead of cooking the grated carrots and milk together until the milk dries up (as the recipe advises), I cooked the grated carrots alone first until all the water evaporated and they started smelling richly sweet instead of sickly sweet – then added milk and followed the recipe (this tip from my mother gives the halwa a wonderful, roasted feeling that is different from the traditional halwa)
• I omitted the use of raisins which I hate and used cashew nuts and almonds
• I added some crushed elaichi (cardamom) for extra flavour