Leftover Gajar Halwa Puff Pastry Dessert

Leftover Gajar Halwa Puff Pastry Dessert Recipe

Make your Valentine’s Day special with these cute heart shaped puff pastries, filled with leftover Gajar ka Halwa (Gajrela), also known as the Indian carrot pudding. Very simple to make at home, this will be fun to make as one of the easy Valentine’s Day desserts!

After hundreds of cookie baking sprees, I finally managed to work on something different this time. I have an inclination towards savory puff pastries, and I usually bake them often. But I have never tried baking a sweet puff pastry. Well, you will definitely see some desserts made with puff pastry at some local bakeries, but it’s a rare sight to bake such desserts at my house.

Anyways, this idea came to my mind while creating a recipe for Gajar Halwa sweetened using jaggery powder. I haven’t done the final video shoot of the Gajrela recipe, since it was still in testing phase, but I figured the idea of Gajrela Puffs while making the halwa.

I was going to discard the idea thinking it might sound funny to some people. But, in the end, you have to listen to your gut, and just do it. Adding the touch of heart cookie cutter is another coincidence which happened since I got some heart cookie cutters to create some heart shaped cookie recipes for Valentine’s Day desserts. But instead, I happened to use the cookie cutter first for this recipe, converting the regular recipe to a festive one. I have used the Puff Pastry sheet from Trader Joe’s. You can use any brand of ready-made puff pastry sheets available.

If you want, you can try this recipe with any filling of your choice. And also, you can make it without the heart shaped cookie cutter. Simply make the regular triangular or rectangular puffs, and stuff it with your favorite filling. Baking temperature and bake time would remain the same.

How to make the Leftover Gajar Halwa Puff Pastry Dessert?

Here is a step-by-step process of making the easy puff pastry dessert, along with pictures of different steps. You can even watch the video linked in the recipe card for better understanding of each step. Let’s get going to the process now.

Step-by-step process (With Pictures)

• Thaw the frozen puff pastry sheet as per package instructions. Take the thawed pastry sheet, unfold it carefully, spread some flour on your kitchen surface (where you want to prepare the puffs) and lightly dust both sides of the sheet. With a rolling pin, roll the sheet from all sides. Prepare egg wash by beating 1 egg in a bowl and keep it aside.

• With a heart cookie cutter, cut the sheet into heart shapes (Make sure to dust the cookie cutter every time before you cut each dough heart). You can use any other shaped cookie cutter as well. I used the heart one to give a special Valentine’s touch to the recipe. Also use the leftover sheet after cutting hearts together to form another dough ball. Flour the surface a little more if needed. Roll the dough into a thin sheet using a rolling pin, and cut out more hearts. You need an even count of hearts in total. I was able to cut 14 hearts in total, and so was able to make 7 Gajrela Puffs.

• Preheat the oven to 400 degree F (or 200 degree Celsius). Line a baking tray with parchment paper and place seven heart cut outs on the lined tray. Using a pastry brush, apply egg wash to the sides of each heart on the tray. Now add around half a tablespoon or more of leftover gajar halwa to the center of each heart.

• Cover each of these hearts with the remaining heart cutouts and press slightly on the sides to secure both hearts together to form a single puff. Then, using a fork, create a design around each heart puff very carefully. Finally, apply egg wash on top part of all the prepared pastry hearts.

• Bake the prepared pastry heart puffs in the preheated oven for around 18-20 minutes (I baked them for 20 minutes exactly). Once done, remove the baking tray from the oven. Serve the gajar halwa puff pastry dessert warm or you can even refrigerate these for sometime, and then serve cold.

Substitutions & Tips for the Sweet Puff Pastry Dessert Recipe

• If you want to avoid using egg, you can use milk wash in place of egg wash. Just apply milk using a pastry brush on top of the hearts (where we are using the egg wash in the recipe).
• Optionally, after the puffs are baked and cooled to room temperature, you can drizzle some melted white chocolate (chips) on top of the puffs for more flavor.
• It is important to dust the cookie cutter with flour every time before cutting out each heart from the puff pastry sheet. This prevents the cookie cutter from sticking to the sheet.
• Feel free to use any other cookie cutter shape.
• I have used leftover gajar halwa for this recipe. But, feel free to add your choice of filling.
• I have used the Puff Pastry sheet from Trader Joe’s. You can use any brand of ready-made puff pastries available.

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Also, continuing the tradition, here comes the 62nd recipe under My Julie & Julia Project. For those who don’t know, I had started this project under which I had planned to post 100 recipes from my kitchen by the end of the year 2020. But, due to 2020 being the year of drastically changing priorities, I am continuing it further this year. So, here is the Recipe #62 for you all.

Also, I have uploaded the video recipe of these Leftover Gajrela Puffs to my YouTube channel. You can check out the video and do subscribe to my channel for more such baking recipes. You can even connect with me on Facebook and Instagram.

Also, if you like this recipe, do check out the recipe of these famous savory puff pastry bakes. Paneer lovers should check out the recipe of these Paneer Puffs and for those who like Chicken, can try out these amazingly delicious Chicken Curry Puffs. For now, let’s get going to the recipe of the valentine special Indian dessert of heart shaped gajrela puff pastries.