Semolina Halvah with Ice Cream

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp butter (or ghee)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 tbsp pine nuts
• 2 cups semolina 
• Ice cream as the filling

Syrup

• 2 cups milk
• 2 cups sugar

Preparation

1. In a sauce pan, combine butter, olive oil and pine nuts. Stirring constantly, cook this mixture over medium heat until the pine nuts are fully roasted. You need to roast the pine nuts properly to bring out their delicious flavor. You know they are roasted when they turn toasty brown, watch out for burning as they gradually turn brown and fill your kitchen with a very sweet aroma. 
2. Add the semolina at once and keep stirring until the semolina turns to a light brown color. 
3. Meanwhile, in a separate sauce pan, boil milk and sugar. It doesn't have to come to a full boil as long as all the sugar is dissolved. 
4. Carefully add the milk-sugar mixture to semolina. Be careful at this step as hot splatters do happen and you don't want to burn yourself. 
5. Close the lid and let simmer over low-medium heat for 5 minutes. (You need to watch closely and make sure semolina absorbs all the liquid.) 
6. Turn off the heat and set aside to cool. You've successfully completed the "semolina halvah" part of the recipe. Now you just go get your ice cream from the freezer.
7. While the halvah is still warm, cover a small bowl’s bottom and sides with semolina halvah. Do not pour the halvah or fill up the bowl as that ruins the whole ''filled with ice cream " concept. 
8. Fill with ice cream. 
9. Now cover the ice cream with the rest of the halvah. Immediately turn the bowl upside down over a serving plate. Serve with cinnamon on top.

*My mother doesn't use 2 cups of milk but a cup of milk and a cup of water. She says too much milk changes the texture and the taste.

**Go sparingly on sugar. Sometimes a cup and a half is enough. As a sugar snob, I recommend taste tasting.