Turkish delight

While I’m not too fond of Turkish delight my dad adores it. Every year for his birthday and for Christmas my mum would send him a box of it from me as I was too young and then too lazy to do it myself. This hasn’t happened for a good few years now so I thought that it would be quite nice to try and master it this month in time to send some over to him for the 25th.

I used Esther Walker’s recipe (http://reciperifle.blogspot.com) rather than one that made it seem like I needed industrial kitchen equipment and a degree in biochemical engineering.

Stuff what it’s made of:
25g of powdered gelatine
255ml of water
4 teaspoons of rose water
450g of caster sugar
3 to 4 drops of red food dye
Icing sugar to dust the finished product with

I measured out 450g of caster sugar on my rubbish scales. And then realised how truly rubbish they are. Because the bag was 500g and when it hit 450 it was empty. So I poured what I hoped was 50g back and prayed. Then I hit my first real hurdle (I can count in tens so Sugar-gate doesn’t really count). How much was in the sachet of gelatine?! The box said 70g, there were six sachets in the box, was that 70g a sachet or the whole box? Oh GOD. Then I read the back; a whole sachet set half a pint of water and with my mind skills I worked out that I needed half a sachet. When I say mind skills I mean I filled up a pint glass with water, measure it in a jug and realised that 255ml is just over half a pint. So I poured the water in to a pan and added half the gelatine. Then I stirred it a bit and realised I’d put the whole pint of water in. So that went down the drain with a whole lot of hot water which I hoped meant it wouldn’t set in the pipes.

Once I’d put the right amount of water and gelatine back in the pan and added the sugar I put it on a low heat and stirred continuously until it all dissolved. At least I think it did, it took so long I gave up after about twenty minutes. It was really quite hard to tell if it was still grainy because it was a murky brown colour, a bit like stock. In hindsight I think this was because I used organic caster sugar which is a lot darker than the normal stuff.

Then I turned the heat up and brought it to the boil without stirring. I was a bit disturbed by the scummy froth that came to the surface and stuck all round the sides because this made me remember that gelatine comes from the inside of cow’s feet and… pig’s skulls… or something equally disgusting.

Then for twenty five minutes I let it simmer and probably ruined it by smoking a fag over it and stirring it several times because doing that made me feel slightly more in control.

After my buzzer cocked up and didn’t go off after twenty five minutes I took the pan off the stove and tried to add the food colouring. The huge flaw with those little bottles is that they don’t come with some sort of pipette. It just pours out so I think I added about a spoonful rather than a few drops. It also went all over my hands making it look as though I’d spent the day in an abattoir which just made me think about the origins of gelatine again.

I’d greased a cake tin with groundnut oil earlier and let the mixture cool for a few minutes before pouring it in. I was worried that it would all leak out of the loose base so I stuck it on a load of kitchen roll. I realised that if it did seep out of the tin this would all stick to the countertop so as an extra measure I made a little fort out of tinfoil. ‘Ingenious!’ I hear you cry but I’m modest so I’ll pretend I didn’t notice.

The Turkish delight should set in twenty four hours after which you cut it up and cover it in icing sugar. And then shove it all in your mouth and not let anyone else try any.

Unfortunately mine was the consistency of yoghurt and had leaked everywhere. The only place for it was the bin. I was strangely Zen about this and rather than just shout and give up as usual I decided I’d make another batch.

This time I used just under a whole sachet of gelatine and used normal, battery farmed caster sugar. It was a much better colour and a lot thicker just before I boiled it than the first lot. And unlike the first lot the mixture went mental as it was simmering. I gave it a stir and a huge amount of white foam reared up and nearly came out of the pan. I probably didn’t help matters by poking it quite a bit so I could giggle and gawp when it reacted and bubbled up.

I left this one to set in a greased dish as my cake tin was still covered in my first attempt and hoped that this time I had cracked it.

I hadn’t. It looked quite promising but when I tipped the dish a bit it slowly oozed everywhere. There was no way it was coming out so I had to spoon most of it in to the bin before boiling the rest off it off the sides. Again I calmly greased the now clean cake tin and started from scratch.

With the phrase ‘third time lucky’ ringing in my ears I decided on a new approach. I weighed out all six sachets from the box of gelatine and realised that they were 70g all together, which works out as nearly 12g a sachet. This of course could explain the slop I made before. This time I used two sachets. I also decided to not stir it at all as it simmered. Around ten minutes after being dunked in the tin it was already quite stiff.

When I got home from work the next day the whole thing was ready to come out of the tin. Sort of. I managed to get the bottom out with some effort (and a satisfying squelch) but I was left with a big ring of Turkish delight stuck to a metal base. I covered a chopping board with icing sugar to stop it gluing itself to that, got a spatula and eased the whole thing off slowly. Very slowly. Now I set to work chopping it up. The chunks I’ve got weren’t really the perfect shape as my cake tin is quite wide, so rather than nice cubes I’ve got funny little rectangles. I doused them in more icing sugar, stuck them in a tub and voila! Turkish delight.

I still need to perfect this a bit as there was a bit of froth on the mixture when I poured it out and this had hardened into a bit of a sugary crust on some parts– which sounds oh so appetising but isn’t really too awful. It’s a little bit chewy but I think I’m nearly there.