A common Middle Eastern dessert, halva is a sweet confection that is traditionally served with a strong coffee or tea. There are two types of halva. One is a flour-based concoction, and the other uses finely ground nuts as its base. The texture varies greatly dependent on the area from which its recipe is derived. It is often garnished with crushed pistachios or enrobed in chocolate. Recipes and additives vary somewhat from region to region and from cook to cook.

The root word coming from the Arabic language, halawa means sweet, which perfectly describes this concoction. The Turkish as well as the Hebrew people have recipes with slight variations on the Middle Eastern dessert. The inexpensive treat is eaten in small blocks and often savored, melting slowly on a person's tongue.

Halva is a quite simple and popular confection to make and takes very little time to prepare. It contains only a few basic ingredients, including water, sugar, and flour. The addition rose water is what specifically makes this sweet flour-based confection so unique.

The most common type of grain flour used to make havla is semolina. Semolina is made from durum wheat. It is most often coarsely ground, as opposed to the traditional cooking flour that is finely ground. The yellow coloring of the semolina flour gives the halva a rich hue. While it tends to be coarse before cooking, semolina flour becomes soft and porridge-like when it is cooked. Semolina is referred to as sameed.

Also common is nut-based halva. More crumbly in consistency, the nut-based variety is most often made from grinding sesame seeds or sunflower seeds into a paste. Ground sesame, also known as tahini, is a common ingredient in many Persian dishes. Due to the fact that these seeds are so oily, the ground paste from the seeds need only have a sugar syrup or honey added to it to create the halva. No oil is necessary as with the semolina-based halva.

Different types of halva are found around the world. It is no longer just made in home kitchens with family recipes carried down from generation to generation. It can now be purchased in grocery stores and the simplest to the grandest candy stores.