Salted Chocolate Halvah (Sesame Fudge)

My first experience with halvah was several years ago when I bought Joyva chocolate covered halvah from the international food aisle on a whim. I knew that some Asian countries use sesame in desserts, but I had not heard of this before. It is a common dessert item in the Middle East and is also enjoyed by Jewish people.

I loved it. It reminds me a little of Butterfinger candy bars, but not quite as sickly sweet and also easier to bite into. Why are Butterfinger candy bars so hard?

Anyway. Fast forward to last week when I knew I was going to an afternoon tea potluck, and the hosts had dairy and gluten allergies. I had been wanting to try to make halvah for the last couple of months and also wanted to bring something both of the hosts could actually eat, and this fit the bill!

Notes:

• If you use tahini from a jar, make sure you stir it very well so there are no lumps. Very small ones will melt when you mix in the hot sugar syrup but larger ones will stay in pockets and mess up the texture.
• I made this vegan by using dairy free chocolate.
• Upon researching recipes for halvah I noticed that different ones tell you different final temperatures for the sugar syrup, ranging from 240 (soft ball) to 248 (hard ball). Some said you want the texture to be crumbly, others said it should be chewy like caramel. I don't know if the differing texture is a regional difference based on what country it's made in, personal preference of the person writing the recipe, or not making it correctly.
• It is important that the sugar syrup does not crystallize or it will be especially crumbly and may not form a solid mass. I got most of it mixed in just fine but then made the mistake of scraping the sides of the pan and I think that set off the crystallization. This is also probably why the finished brick of candy was more fragile than in the original recipe's video and broke into two large pieces when I transferred it to the rack to put chocolate on it. It did still taste good, though, which is ultimately my most important metric.
• I did not use the vegetable oil spray and was fine. I used a nonstick coated pan and only the parchment paper, and had no trouble releasing it from the pan.

Verdict: I love how it tastes and despite it being something people in my area probably haven't heard of, the people that tried it at the potluck seemed to like it. I'd definitely like to try making it again and avoid the pitfalls that made the execution of this batch less than stellar. I also need a new candy thermometer that A) fits under my microwave range hood thing and B) goes down low enough in the pan to sit in the candy syrup.

RECIPE: Salted Chocolate Halva (it includes a really helpful video!)