Preheat the oven to 375F/190C.

Prepare a 12-well muffin tin for baking: either butter lavishly, spray with cooking spray, or line with muffin papers.

Melt the butter. I put it in a Pyrex measuring cup and microwave it in 10-second bursts. Once the butter is melted, the cup sits on the stove, where it won’t congeal.

Make the halvah filling:

Prepare the nuts, if using: shell and break apart, if necessary. Toasting nuts adds a layer of flavor; I skipped this step, but if you want to add flavor, toast your nuts in a small pan over medium low heat. Watch carefully, as nuts go from toasted to burnt in seconds.

If nuts are warm, allow them to cool before adding them to bowl, below.

Add the nuts, cinnamon, and brown sugar to the small bowl. Crumble halvah into bowl. I find clean fingers are best for the job, but a fork or small whisk also works.

If your brown sugar is clumping, give it a few turns in the microwave. Be careful–it can get very hot.

Make the muffin batter:

In the dry bowl:

Add the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Whisk or fork together to blend.

In the wet bowl:

Add the sugar, eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract. Stir to just blend. Add the melted butter. Stir to blend.

Scrape the contents of the wet bowl into the dry bowl and mix until just blended. Do not overmix. A few lumps are fine.

Now you decide whether to stir the halvah filling through the batter or to fill the muffins.

To stir, tip the filling into the bowl and just mix through the batter.

To fill the muffins:

Spoon batter into wells so each is just under half-full. Add a generous teaspoon of filling to each well. Cover filling so each well is roughly 2/3 full. Overfilling the wells may result in uneven baking or batter escaping the muffin pan. This happened to me, and it wasn’t pretty.

Any leftover muffin batter/filling may be baked in a second muffin pan, if you have one. Fill empty muffin wells with water so muffins bake evenly.

You can also butter a small pan or mold(s) and bake the remaining batter that way. See post, above, for an example.

Bake muffins 15-25 minutes. They are done when a tester comes out clean.

Cool halvah muffins completely on a rack before turning out.

Halvah muffins keep at room temperature in an airtight tin or sealed bag up to four days. After that, refrigerate them up to three days. Freeze up to three months.

Notes:

Use any nut you like, or none at all.

The dairy element is flexible, too. Use creme fraiche, heavy cream, or milk. If you use skim or 2% milk, the muffins will have a drier texture and won’t keep as long.

You can add more sugar to the muffin batter. I would not recommend going below 1/4 cup/60grams. Less than that and both flavor and texture suffer.

As noted in the post, the muffin batter can be baked in a buttered 9-inch/22-cm pie or cake pan. I use Pyrex glass pie pans. Turn the oven down to 350F/180C. Baking time will be 30-35 minutes.