Come winter and piping hot gajar ka halwa with unsweetened chai makes for the ideal snack to warm you up. The recipe, which dates back to the Mughal empire, came about as a healthy yet scrumptious tweak to the recipe of the traditional halwa. While the original recipe comprises carrot, milk and ghee, today, it's also made using mava, though still slow-cooked. We pick eateries in Mumbai that have given their own twist to it as well as those that stick to the original.

Feast of five

Giving the gajar ka halwa a Christmassy twist, this Lower Parel eatery is serving five carrot preparations in the form of a cake log, using different types of the ingredient. The Dilli carrot swiss roll, a rendition of gajar ka halwa, comprises a tender carrot cake made with red carrots, black carrot halwa, carrot jam, candied black carrots and black carrot jelly made with the leftover purple syrup from the candied carrots.